One o’clock in the morning. The darkness is complemented with a few pulses of a soft glow coming the curtained window beside your bed. You’ve been asleep for several hours now, completely relaxed, in deep comfort. Lying on your back, you have your arm stretched along the side of your body with the palm facing up.
Outside of a dream, you feel something softly dropped across your wrist. Then a cold, wet nose places itself on your warm, tender skin inside of your arm, just beside the sprawled lump. You wake at once, realizing your oh-so-precious kitty has just decided he wanted you to play fetch with him using a fuzzy, half-dead mouse instead of his fuzzy pompom! Out of instinct you flick your wrist and sit up in bed as the cat chases after the now-flung mouse.
Once you fumble around and get the light on, Oh-So-Precious Kitty has not pursued the mouse after all, as expected; he’s poised on the foot of the bed, watching your reaction-sitting on his haunches, tail wrapped casually around his fat torso, looking serenely at you as if he doesn’t understand what all the fuss is about. As a matter of fact, his half-opened eyes are expressing, “Maybe you should calm down.”
The thought enters your mind, “Okay, he’s only offered me a gift then, didn’t want to play fetch after all.” But then you realize you had reacted so fast after he hurled that mouse on your wrist, you should have walloped his head, at least his nose (wouldn’t that have taught him!), but you didn’t. So, that means after flinging his bait on your wrist, he drew back quickly beause he knew how you would react and wanted to be out of harm’s way-just so he could enjoy the show!
In today’s society, we find, and unfortunately, interact with many people just like my cat; they will fling something at you, let you take the show, and hope you make a fool out of yourself and those you represent. There are gobs of time (sorry, still thinking of that half-dead mouse-globs, ya know), anyway, there are oodles of time when we react out of instinct and later wish we hadn’t behaved the way we did.
When you have had someone toss something at you, e.g an insult, a new bill in Congress that goes against what you blieve, a news story, or simply the telling of an event, the best thing to do first is look at the source. Who’s telling you? Why are they telling you this? What is their endgame? Are they trying to get a rise out of you? Or is it a legitimate person passing on information they deem is useful or interesting to you?
Upon hearing the story, if you become irate, then make sure to take a step back; the other party probably did this after relaying their information to you. Just follow their example. James, the brother of Jesus, gave an excellent piece of advice in his letter: “Let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger.” (James 1:19 ESV) It would help many of us today in confronting the troubles and troublemakers.
If you’ve thought through what the person has said to you and have taken time to think and research (if needed), then you should have had the time to calm down and will be able to approach the other in kindness and, at the same time, might even impress others while you express your thoughts.
Solomon gave a lot of helpful hints, like in Proverbs 18:17 ESV, he says, “The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him.” If you have found the truth, then you know what questions to ask first and the answers for questions people ask you. And as Solomon said, “The wise of heart is discerning, and the sweetness of speech increases persuasiveness.” (Prov. 16:21 ESV)
By the way, the mouse must have been playing ‘possum, it got away. Did I say “precious kitty” before? I meant rotten cat! Oh, yes, right: sweetness of speech. Well, actually, I do love my sweet, preciously rotten, furry, fat, baby boy.
©2021 Kelly L. Hartley
Kelly L. Hartley, a new author, writes Bible studies, devotions, fiction, and poems. She focuses on Bible contradictions for her “Spare Time Musings” on Substack. She’s a member of Ozark Chapter of American Christian Writers and Springfield Writer’s Guild. Social media: Substack, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram.