I Want to Believe

ZaZa has feline HIV. After racking up a huge bill for medication, injections, special cat food and changing vets, finally they tell us that's the most probable diagnosis. I thought my kid was kidding when she announced it over dinner time. HIV? I know animals can get cancer, but HIV?....gee, we learn new things everyday. My next thought was how did she get it? Ok, granted ZaZa has always been a wild one; once she went missing in action for about 2 months, then reappeared at our door-step, thin, scraggly and bearing wounds of 'street-battles' she must have gotten into. Of all our 3 cats, ZaZa is the one who most epitomizes the "I am queen, you are subject" syndrome to us; she does what she wants, not what we want.
Now I know how humans get HIV, but cats? My mind was thinking....all those night wanderings of hers; but she has been neutered...does she still 'do it'? Shows how ignorant I am, but thank goodness for Google. Unlike humans, feline HIV hasn't got anything to do with sex. Like human HIV, there's no cure, though it can't spread by contact; in fact, humans can't get infected from cats. That's a relief but it's no comfort really because it means ZaZa is dying.

My no. 2 princess wondered aloud, does ZaZa know she's dying? I dunno.  What happens to cats when they die? I dunno. My Bible doesn't talk about animal heaven or hell. Those 2 places are reserved only for the human race apparently. Whatever, I am sure animals are a lot less complicated; they don't need to ponder such weighty matters like eternity, sin, love, death.

I see our youngest (young as in 30 human years old) cat Maffin  literally having a ball-of-a-time everyday. He's active and frisky...well, as a cat...he gets into everything and everybody's way. He lies right in the middle of the road as if he's king, quite oblivious of something called cars. He can't wait for me to open the door, but squeezes through the grills. He boldly pokes his nose into the other cats' food bowls. He can't be bothered even when ZaZa hisses and swipes a territorial paw at him. Heck, he even chews the plant in the pot.

Isn't that so like humans too... when we are young, as long as we are reasonably healthy, we can 'go wild';  we don't have a care for anything, except food to eat, money to spend, pleasures to enjoy. We think we are invincible. Until something happens, like a plane which disappears into thin air. Like a helicopter crash.  Like people chopping off other people's heads in the name of religion. Like a healthy friend getting cancer. Like a much-beloved old pet dying. Times like these shock us and remind us life is really very frail; at least for a short while, however rich, clever or independent we think we are.  But the shock is usually momentary, since it's always happening to 'others'; it's like the news, good only for that day or as long as it's still news-worthy.

Until one day the 'it' happens to us. Then only it hits hard enough to hurt personally, and then only, it hurts real bad. That's when we are forced to ask the hard questions of life. Top of the list is the "Why" question. Why me? Why like this? Why, God?  It's as if we all think we are entitled to a trouble-free life, and if something bad happens, it means either there is no God, God isn't good, or God is no use. How presumptious and facile humans can be. We can accept lots of things we can see and explain as real. But the minute we are asked to accept a God we can't see and can't explain away, we don't want to believe.

It took the dying of my husband before I believed. Only when I suffered, then I knew God is real. My husband himself was at the very brink of death's door before he believed; he spoke of standing in the middle with 2 armies, each trying to pull him over to their side. Hallucinations of a man dying of cancer? Or the reality of the spiritual realm being opened  in the last moments of every human life? I venture to think God could ask us a few Why questions Himself like Why do we want to wait till suffering or death strikes before we will believe Him? Why do we insist God must prove Himself? I figure for all our excuses - and there are many which sound perfectly reasonable even - it's not really that we can't believe; it's rather we just don't want to believe in something/ someOne we cannot control, because we want to be masters of our own destiny.
 
The only problem with that is we aren't really. We can shout and claim all we want that we are free, that it doesn't matter whether God exists or not, since we all die anyway.  But refusal to acknowledge the possibility that we can be (very) wrong means effectively we are imprisoning ourselves. I don't want a freedom that ends up in me being short-changed and missing the real thing. The wisest king who ever lived said, " There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." (Proverbs 14:12)

I want to believe God because I believe there is something called justice. If there is no heaven no hell, no God to answer to, it doesn't matter how anyone lives; bad and good would have no meaning. We can say or do whatever we want, hurt or even kill one another, we can cheat and steal whether it's  $1, $1000 or $1 million. It doesn't matter anyway if we are free to escape the consequences of our action or inaction, if death is all there is to life.  But we know instinctively that can't be right, because some things are just plain wrong. We don't need a God to tell us that. The obvious corollary to that is whether we admit it or not, we need a God to see true justice done ultimately. Because a look at what's happening in the world around us will show up the futility of depending on man to do justice. Something innate in us demands justice be done. And man fail miserably at dispensing it.

If I believe in justice, I cannot not believe there is a God who will ultimately justify all that man can't. So that even if right now, wickedness and evil seems to triumph on this earth, there is no escape of an after-life that all must confront and be confronted with.  If I don't want to believe, it simply means I am living in denial and in rejection of the only hope that life on this earth must count for  all that is good, right, true and just.

Most of all I want to believe God because only He can love like He does, unconditionally. There's no other love so powerful so pure that proves itself by literally dying for all who don't deserve it. It blows my mind that God would choose me as His beloved; that He doesn't just claim or say He loves me, but goes all the way to hang on a cross to show me its extent and reality. No one can love me that much. If I believe in love, I cannot not believe in a God who is Love.

I don't want to live without hope. I don't want to live without experiencing the freedom of  the highest noblest truest love of all. The world is depressing enough as it is. Hope keeps me trusting there is something better, something more than just death waiting to swallow me up. Love guarantees I am forgiven, sinner that I am .

I don't know if my cat knows, but I  know that when I die, my life isn't reduced to just a here-today-gone-tomorrow obituary in the newspaper. I know I am saved and safe, held in the hands of a God who is all justice and all love.

 "Righteousness and justice are the foundation of Your throne; love and faithfulness go before You" - Psalm 89:14