Don't Eat the Cat Food!: Why Christians Should Change Our Thinking About God so We Can Live Full and Abundant Lives

By William D. Moak

This book is about expanding our horizons and tuning our spiritual antennae to the frequency of the Creator, who is urgently trying to get our attention. God speaks through nature, through events, through our fellow human beings, and most potently through his timeless Word. But in the frantic pace of our daily lives, we can miss out on the joy we're supposed to have, and instead live lives of unfulfilled potential. But that's not what God wants from us! Remember how he called the disciples? He calls you and me too! We could be living full, exciting lives on the edge, chasing after the only treasure worth pursuing: a fuller, deeper relationship with our Creator, characterized by obedience toand dependence uponJesus Christ.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jan 13, 2016
• ISBN: 9781512724462

William D. Moak

Bill Moak has deep roots in Lincoln County, Mississippi, and was reared in a Christian home by Tom, a minister of music, and Willa, a schoolteacher. At the age of eight, his parents showed him the way to the cross, and he made the most important decision of his life—to accept Jesus Christ's free gift of grace and strive to honor Christ and to seek him first. Bill is a lifelong writer and is passionate about the art and craft of writing. He frequently writes as a consumer columnist for the Clarion-Ledger newspaper in Jackson, Mississippi, and collects his personal and professional writings on a blog called Writings, Ramblings, and Rubble (billmoak.wordpress.com). Bill teaches business courses at Tulane University and is actively involved in scouting. He is accredited (APR) by the Public Relations Society of America and is a Paul Harris Fellow and past president of the Madison-Ridgeland Rotary Club. Bill and his wife, Lori, serve at Broadmoor Baptist Church in Madison, Mississippi, where he serves as a deacon and in the media ministry. Bill and Lori have two sons, Daniel and Caleb.

Book preview

DON’T EAT THE

CAT Food!

Why Christians Should Change Our Thinking about God So We Can Live Full and Abundant Lives

William D. Moak

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Copyright © 2016 William D. Moak.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

WestBow Press

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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ISBN: 978-1-5127-2447-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-2448-6 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-2446-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015920999

WestBow Press rev. date: 01/13/2016

Contents

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Preface

Introduction

Chapter 1   Seven Characteristics of God

Chapter 2   Getting past the money

Chapter 3   Becoming aware of our dependence

Chapter 4   Forgetting what we think we know about cause and effect

Chapter 5   Acknowledging God’s involvement in creation

Chapter 6   Enlarging your sense of reality

Chapter 7   Learning about the fallacy of scarcity

Chapter 8   Acknowledging God’s economy

Chapter 9   Learning to trust God

Chapter 10   Distinguishing wants from needs

Chapter 11   Abandoning revenge

Chapter 12   Our story

Chapter 13   Finding peace in stormy seas

Chapter 14   Restoring our connection to the creator

Chapter 15   Facing adversity

Chapter 16   Dealing with depression and desperation

Chapter 17   Recognizing the lies of the enemy

Chapter 18   Coming home

Chapter 19   Getting away from the clutter

Chapter 20   Seeking simplicity

Chapter 21   Waiting on God

Chapter 22   Reconnecting to the source

Chapter 23   Learning to be content

Chapter 24   Getting a perspective on wealth

Chapter 25   Taking the eternal perspective

Chapter 26   Finding the source of truth

Chapter 27   Forgiving yourself

Chapter 28   Relying on God

Chapter 29   Opening a channel

Chapter 30   Taking the difficult path

Chapter 31   Putting it into practice

Chapter 32   Being an authentic Christian

Conclusion

Works Cited

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my parents, Tom and Willa, who taught me the little things and the big things, and encouraged me to explore, wonder and, above all, to seek God first.

Acknowledgements

This book could not happened without the steadfast support of my wife and best friend Lori, whose wisdom, patience and honest advice keeps me grounded. My awesome boys, Daniel and Caleb, make me proud every day. I am especially grateful to everyone who reviewed copy and gave me valuable feedback and insight, including Bro. Floyd Higginbotham. Two wonderful artists helped complete this book: Sherry Carlson brought her amazing watercolor talents to the cover, and Jeffrey Yentz (who is a master with pen-and-ink) beautifully captured key concepts in his illustrations. I will always be grateful for some friends who believed in me enough to support my first feeble attempt at crowdfunding this book. My lifegroup and friends at Broadmoor Baptist Church have prayed for and with me and walked alongside my family as we have journeyed through uncharted territory. And ultimately, I owe everything to Christ, who saved me and whose name I am trying to honor through this work.

It is he who made the earth by his power, who established the world by his wisdom, and by his understanding stretched out the heavens. - Jeremiah 10:12

I am the Lord your God, who brought you up out of Egypt. Open wide your mouth and I will fill it. - Psalm 81:10

Preface

Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who acts on behalf of those who wait for him. – NIV, Isaiah 64:4

You’ve heard it all your life: His ways are not our ways, or – in the language of the country preacher – God doesn’t run his train on our tracks. But it’s true; when trying to understand the mind and heart of the creator of the universe, we are dealing with an intellect so vast and powerful that we could not possibly hope to understand Him completely.

On the other hand, our spiritual experience tells us we are dealing with a being whose true nature is love, one who creates and manages in ways that constantly demonstrate his awareness of – and his compassion for – seven billion beings who live on a small, rocky planet, circling an average-sized star, at the edge of a standard spiral galaxy, among billions of other galaxies.

They seem like contradictory concepts: how could a God who could set one foot in the Milky Way and the other in Andromeda (at the same time) care so much about me, that He ripped out a piece of his own being just so we could be offered a chance to be with him? That he pleads with us to trust him with the important (and mundane) details of our lives? That he longs for us to seek him out and try to understand him? It certainly makes no sense, but if you are a fellow traveler trying to take the Christian walk, you may intuitively feel that there is indeed an answer to these questions. And there is.

But if we seek to understand God from a human perspective, we will simply fail. All the languages on Earth don’t contain nearly enough words to adequately describe Him. Our intellects might be good at cracking the human genetic code or sending a man to the moon and back, but the greatest achievements of the human race are like child’s play to him. Repeatedly, we are told to try anyway, to, Study to show ourselves approved unto God, as Paul said, or to Put on the mind of Christ.

Simply put, if we want to understand God better, we must begin by understanding that he sees the world differently than we do. He doesn’t confine himself to this small planet, and his actions are not governed by what we call the laws of the universe. He lives outside time, outside space. The worlds above us and the worlds below us are so immense that we can’t even perceive but a hint of them, even with all our intellect and technology. And we never will.

But he calls us to try to understand. By doing so, we can begin to align our thinking and actions more closely with his, and abandon the flawed human concepts that bind our spiritual wings and tragically chain us to the ground, dooming us to lives of unfulfilled potential, ineffective and useless to carrying out his plans. He wants us to fly, but instead, we choose to walk around with our wings clipped, pathetically grounded by our own sin and our own choices.

If you’ve spent any time in Sunday School, you probably know the story of the loaves and the fishes in John 6 or the miraculous catch of fish in John 21. Scripture is full of such testimonies which demonstrate how God can provide beyond our understanding, and you don’t have to look very far to find a witness who can testify to that from firsthand experience. These stories point to something really important: Man’s economy is not God’s.

One thing that derails so many of us in our spiritual journeys is how we deal with catastrophe. Human suffering is perhaps the most written-about and studied concept, in theology and philosophy. When human beings are confronted with the really deep questions surrounding suffering and God’s role in it, the well seems to come up empty.

But I believe that’s because we fail to take into account the fact that our ways are, in fact, not God’s ways; we must learn that there is absolute truth out there, but we’ve hidden it from ourselves. And sometimes, it’s only when we’ve been knocked out of our spiritual complacency by some catastrophe that we can move on to a bigger understanding. Of course, catastrophe brings suffering. Unfortunately, that’s part of what we can expect during this short journey on Earth. But, if history teaches us anything, most of the great lessons in life are learned not through happiness, but after pain. The point is not to enjoy pain, but rather to learn from it. Catastrophe is like a crucible; it can burn away the impurities we’ve acquired along the way, focusing us and recasting our lives into something better. It can be a springboard to fuller and richer lives, but we have to commit to making a change.

God’s creation inspires me; you’ll find that inspiration echoing throughout these pages. I wrote this book so you and I can take advantage of the infinite resources of God. It’s written for my fellow Christians, who have at some point in their lives surrendered to the saving grace that Jesus bought for us on the cross. There are a lot of tragedies in the world, but one of the saddest of all is when we Christians fail to reflect the brilliant light of our creator, living our lives without having tasted the true freedom that comes with surrendering our will to God’s. We are promised a more abundant life; all we have to do is take it; instead, we settle for mediocrity. As C.S. Lewis put it, we are like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea.¹

This book is a travelogue of sorts, but also a tour guide which can only hint at the deep riches to be found in the experiences which mark the journey. We are travelers, visitors to this planet we call Earth and the short mortal existence in which we find ourselves. As spiritual beings, we must strive to get along as best we can, while remembering that this life is but a short stretch along the endless road our souls travel through eternity. The truth is much deeper than we know; that much is certain.

So let’s explore the hidden depths that lie beyond our five senses, in the process loosening our chains, and getting closer to understanding the God who loves us endlessly, pursues us relentlessly, and can be trusted to provide for us from infinite resources.

Introduction

Imagine for a moment you are a zookeeper, with a hungry nine-foot Bengal Tiger in your care. It’s time for his feeding. Powerful and intimidating, the cat paces back and forth in his cage as he eyes you warily. You can imagine he’s assessing how good of a meal you might be. Quickly, you open the cage door and slide in a large bowl of nutritionally complete cat food.

But as the tiger sniffs the air, his pupils dilate, his ears perk up, and he begins to salivate. He knows you’ve brought something else. On your cart, there is a huge, fresh rack of ribs. Carefully, you slide the meat into the cage and shut the door.

You know what happens next: pouncing on the ribs with reckless abandon (and ignoring the waiting bowl of cat food), the big cat eats until he can eat no more. Then he looks around drowsily, and finding a corner, he lies down. Happily licking his chops and falling asleep, he dreams a happy-tiger dream. Life is good.

But let me pose a question: what if you did exactly as you did before, but instead of gorging himself on the meat, this time the tiger sniffed it, but then went back to nibble at the bowl of cat food? Of course, that would be ridiculous, right? You would probably have him examined by the veterinarian to check if he had a sore tooth or indigestion. A hungry tiger – made by his creator to be a first-class predator – knows what meets his needs. And it’s not cat food.

TigerBowl.tif

Have you ever really watched a cat out in the yard, when she thinks you’re not looking? Cats are hunters. Like their wild, larger cousins, they are only truly satisfied when they are doing what they do best: hunt. You may think it’s cruel for her to find a mouse or baby squirrel and then dispatch it mercilessly. But she’s doing what her creator programmed her to do; carrying out the instructions in her DNA. It’s what fulfills her. (That’s why she will bring a dead rat and place it by the back door; she’s showing off her hunting skills.) And if you placed a bowl of Meow Mix next to a plate of hamburger, which do you think she’s going to pounce on first? Just like the tiger, she knows what she wants and what she needs.

So, what can we learn from feline food preferences? A lot. As ridiculous as it may seem, we humans have gotten really good at taking the cat food. Although the real treasure is within easy