By: Deborah Lovett

Are you prepared for a theological, spiritual, in-depth blog today? Well, sorry! You see, we forget that something as simple as finding God in hamsters sometimes means finding a sense of humor!

It was the last day of school and I promised my eleven-year old son a hamster. One fancy, furry, golden hamster-that was my part. A state of the art cage, complete with big screen TV, food, and bedding-that was his part!

We prayed and asked God for the right hamster before we entered the pet store. (God cares about even the littlest of these.) My son had saved his allowance and bought the most elaborate cage in the pet store as we brought home his new pride and joy! He named him “Hamster” after going through about 1000 other names!

So how do we find God in all this you may be asking? Well, approximately two days later I awoke to, “Mom, I don’t think my Hamster is a boy, she had babies! We are grandparents!” Sure enough, there were six little pink babies in the cage. After I went berserk, I mean how could God do this? We prayed didn’t we? What in the world was He thinking? I don’t have the time or the knowledge to care for six baby hamsters and wouldn’t want to even if I did.

Then it hit me: things are not always as they seem. Yes, it seemed we had one hamster and were safe from breeding. However, the truth was we had one hamster and it had already bred! No wonder it was so big and fluffy! Our “Hamster” became a “Hamsterette” that day and the lesson was refreshed in my mind that things are not always as they seem. We see things as they are, but there are things that are happening all around us that we may not see. Keeping an eternal perspective is so important these days. The enemy is on the prowl. He wants to discourage us by making us ‘think’ things are only as we see them. There is no greater lie. Take Courage! God is always working behind the scenes and He is able to do exceedingly, abundantly more than we could ever ask or imagine! When we begin to get too comfortable with our own knowledge of how things look, God will shake us up and remind us exactly who is in control.

He sees life, when we see death. He sees mercy when we see sin. He sees a hurting heart when we see ignorance. He sees truth when we see lies. He sees light when we see darkness.  He wants us to see and grasp His perspective today, for finding God and His perspective brings life! (Literally six baby hamsterettes in our case!) Perhaps you are finding God in hamsters, or at least the ones in this story too?

Romans 8:24 In this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

In keeping with our humorous hamster theme, watch the hamster who cannot stop spinning inside his wheel:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXRH50fvHWA&feature=related