The Cure

The Cure

Fleas! They are tiny and irritating and live in the green grasses of our backyard, waiting for the opportune moment that one of our pets may walk on by. With a single leap of up to 150 times their body length, they attach themselves to our animals as they play in the yard, and  thus fleas enjoy life evermore as a blood sucking parasite. Fleas are the major cause of skin diseases in pets and they can cause problems from simple itching to weeping sores, scaly skin and allergies. Fleas! They are uncomfortable, annoying and they give our pets hours of scratching and untold misery.

Fleas are much easier to prevent than to eliminate. What we see in the environment are only approximately 5% of the total number of fleas. The other 95% live as eggs, larvae or pupae. For effective flea control it is essential to break the lifecycle in the environment. This cycle can take as little as 2-3 weeks or as long as 6 months.A well designed programme is necessary to maintain a flea free environment for our pets comfort, health and happiness.

We purchase a product called Advantage. Four vials come in a small box with a picture of a content and peaceful, smiling dog on the front. Each pipette contains only 2.4 ml of a formulated liquid that is applied to the back of the necks of our itchy pets. Every 4 weeks our pets are treated to keep the cycle broken. However, if the 4 weeks passes and our pets are not treated; within a very short time they again become infested with fleas, the scratching and the discomfort start all over again. 

One would think that our pets would be bounding with enthusiasm at the sight and smell of the vials of Advantage that are applied to their necks, knowing how much happiness and well being will result from it’s application. Alas, however they are not. Our pets, 2 dogs and 2 cats, see Advantage  Applicators as the enemy and not the fleas. Michael and I have developed techniques of stealth, cunning and cornering to be able to apply the vials to the back of our pets necks. Our dogs run and quiver and shake in terror. Our cats growl, bite and scratch. Their enemy, the applicators, lock them into a sense of fear and flight.

Our pets have a misplaced fear. They do not really understand that it is the fleas that give them their misery and discomfort. They do not relate to the pipettes of formula being applied to them as saving them from flea bites and infestations. They fight and resist and they are scared of the one product that can give them health and happiness.

Our pets are very much like us. Sin, like the fleas,  infests our lives and brings us brokenness, pain, suffering and misery, yet the one and only saving application, the blood of Jesus Christ is something we naturally fear, resist and run from.  Jesus said in John 10:10, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” Luke 4:18 it says, ”The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised” How Jesus longs to save us, heal us, set us free from sin and give us an abundant life. To His people Jesus mournfully said in Matt 23:37, “how often would I have gathered your children together, even as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings, and you would not!”

What will be said about you and about me? Are we willing to allow the blood of Jesus to be applied in our lives that we may be saved from sin or do we fear God, and in our ignorance run from Him, desiring to live our own lives apart from Him? God won’t corner us with stealth and cunning and force us to accept the cure for sin, unlike what my husband and I need to do with our pets. Instead God calls gently to our hearts with his love, desiring for us to make the choice. Will you choose to accept His cure today?