Why do we want to get out?

My white rat is perched on top of his log and trying to get out of his glass cage. He is a hard worker. All day long he goes from one end of his cage to the other trying to escape. I don't know why. I take good care of him. I feed him and fill his water bottle. I bring him out and let him get a little exercise in his ball. But he still tries to get out.

He has everything he needs but he wants what he doesn't have. The truth is that he doesn't know how lucky he is. He was a lab rat that my daughter rescued from school. He could have been somebody's lab experiment or even someone's dissection experience. Yet he still thinks that getting out of that cage is the most important thing in his life.

He doesn't know that getting out is dangerous. We have this big white cat that always seems to be hungry and eyeing the cage from afar. He doesn't realize that the food doesn't really just appear every day. But all he can think about is satisfying his curiosity.

As I was thinking about my rat and his desire to get out, I couldn't help but think of the way that many of us do essentially the same thing. We push the envelope and try things that lead to dead ends and trouble. We ignore God's warnings and do what we want instead of what we should do. We forget the fact that God has supplied our needs and go looking for things that only cause us pain and bring us sorrow.

Maybe we need to learn how to be satisfied with the blessings we already have in our life and follow the path that God sets before us. After all, he loves us a lot more than I love my little pet rat. I haven't even given it a name yet. And god not only knows your name but he called you by that name even before you left your mother's womb.

Cal