Not Forbidden

Two-year-old little boys do so love to test waters. Recently my own little darling approached our sleeping kitten, curled warmly on the end of our ruffled bed. He took the kitten’s grey and white striped tail in his sticky fist and began to rub it gently across his cheeks.

“Can I snuggle his tail, mama?”

Knowing how temperamental kittens, or really anyone, can be when disturbed from their slumber, I cautioned, “Are you sure he likes it? Do you think it’s a good idea?”

His keen little eyes were unbreaking in their lock with mine. He continued to slowly and intentionally brush his cheeks and chin with the furry tail and responded slowly, thoughtfully, and a touch defiantly, “Well, it is not forbidden.”

I’m not sure what was more impressive, his articulation of the word “forbidden” or the clear picture he’d painted of the concept of adiaphora.

Have you ever justified a choice or exposed yourself to something knowing  “well, it is not forbidden?”

“I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”—but not everything is constructive. 1 Corinthians 10:23

Temptations in this life are ceaseless. Sometimes the choices we are presented with may be clouded in grey areas, strung to wandering motivations, or tied to the soft fluffy tail of a kitty cat who we decide will probably not bite if we’re careful.

My teen years especially were riddled with toeing that line so that my bare feet planted themselves such a minuscule distance from the hard line of “Forbidden”, that I can tell you from experience that “not everything is beneficial.”

It is an incredible God that gives us so much freedom. It is also a just God who does not bend when we misjudge the line in “Forbidden” or stand so close to it so long that we can no longer resist its temptations.

Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. Matthew 5:48

God spends much of the Bible teaching us that we have our own unique spiritual gifts, that we were drawn, knit, formed in our mother’s wombs with kindness and individual care. God does not demand that we fill a cookie-cutter mold of a Christian, but He does command us to follow and listen to His commandments. God wants us to be our unique selves, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be careful about what we expose ourselves to in the realm of adiaphora.

When you’re faced with the soft kitten tails in this life, I’d encourage you to remember the crux of the matter. Whether the kitten bites in any given circumstance isn’t the root of things. Sin and hurt are inevitable in this world, and we have an incredible forgiving God who isn’t keeping a scale to see if we’ve earned Salvation. The matter becomes growing so accustomed to surrounding ourselves with kitten tails and their soft temptations that we no longer consider if they’re forbidden or not, and we no longer consider Him who may or may not forbid them. It is that point that we stray from the narrow path and embrace the wide.

There are so many other God-pleasing pleasures in His creation that it may serve us well to shift our focus towards the less questionable circumstances.

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Philippians 4:8