Copycat

We have some dear friends who have been on vacation this past week. As they often do when they’re going to be out of town, Joe and Jan asked us to run by and feed their cats every other day. We’re more than happy to oblige—Joe and Jan have been very kind to us and feeding their cats is the least we can do.

This past Wednesday, my wife drove our younger son by their home and he went inside and fed their cats. Tammy texted me in an absolute panic. One of the cats, Guinevere (yes, named for King Arthur’s wife), was sitting in the front lawn. RJ, the older boy, had been by to mow the yard a couple days earlier—had he inadvertently let the cat out? What on earth were we going to do?

Tammy and Wil opened the back door of the house, sat inside, and hoped that the cat would come back inside. They tried everything to capture the cat on the lawn, but every time they approached her, she would dart in the opposite direction. For at least an hour, Tam and Wil tried to capture the cat to bring her inside Joe and Jan’s house.

Finally, Tam texted Jan, but she got no response. She called and left a message and awaited Jan’s instructions. Jan called back a little while later with hysterical laughter; “Tammy,” she said, “there’s a cat which looks exactly like Guinevere in the neighborhood. Don’t worry; she’s not ours.”

Laughing, Tammy got off the phone with Jan and looked at me and said, “Can you imagine what the house would have looked like if we’d gotten that cat in the house?” Joe and Jan would most certainly have come home to a house ransacked by a foreign cat!

Tammy and Wilson could not see any difference between the cat in Joe and Jan’s front yard and the one which belonged in their home. That cat was, if you’ll pardon the pun, a copycat

For all the talk about individuality and being different in our culture, we each need to be copycats—we each need to look exactly like Jesus. “Whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked” (1 John 2:6).

“Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ,” Paul said. “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20). “Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps” (1 Peter 2:21).

When people see you at home or at work or at school or at the gym or at the grocery store, whom do they see? Do they see you in all your humanness giving in to the desires of the flesh? Do they see Jesus? Are you walking in the same way he walked? Can you urge others to imitate you as you yourself imitate Christ? Does he live in you? Are you following in his steps?

Go forth and be Jesus in this world! Be a copycat!!