Stewardship

Curiosity Killed Mankind Before it Killed the Cat APAD DAY 19

by Daniel Owino Ogweno
03/07/17
Not For Sale
Author requests article critique

  Message Writer
  Hire Writer

Tweet

Curiosity Killed Mankind Before it Killed the Cat

May, 2013 in Mombasa, Kenya, a cat got its head trapped in a jerrycan. How it squeezed its head into the small hole is difficult to understand. Perhaps that explains why the locals thought there was more to the cat than just being a cat. But on a second thought, cats sticking their heads and getting trapped in cans is not uncommon. 

For four days, the poor cat had to pull and push the jerrycan around. In Mombasa where the locals believe in the physical presence of evil spirits manifesting as cats, they thought that the cat was a demon (jini). No one among the locals offered to take the risk of helping the cat. It took the intervention of animal protection officers to rescue it. 

Curiosity killed the cat is a proverb that warns people against taking unnecessary risks experimenting with or investigating something that may be dangerous. 

Have you ever wondered why something is restricted? There are things that we would get tempted to breach in order to see what will happen next. This happens especially if we are not told what the consequences are. But even when the consequences are spelled out, in some moments of madness, we still think that we can breach the instructions and get away with it. Or sometimes we want to confirm if the warning is true. Think for example how many times people stick their fingers out to touch a newly painted surface after reading: Newly painted, do not touch! 

God was generous enough to give man all he needed. Fruits from all the trees in the garden were for him to eat. There was only one tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, that he was commanded not to eat. Like other trees in the garden, this tree was also fruitful and it was not poisonous. So, when the man was commanded not to eat it, it was not because he would die of poisoning but he would die of disobedience. The divine logic why God allowed the subtlety of the serpent, the gullibility of the first couple and the availability of the forbidden fruit to co-exist is something outside the realm of our understanding. Trying to understand something that God never meant to be understood is as futile as trying to exile air from the surface of the earth. 

Once the first couple’s curiosity was aroused by the serpent, they ignored the command they had been given. Before curiosity killed the cat, it indeed killed man. There must have been a number of diabolic logics and canal thoughts that crowded their mind: 

• If God didn’t want us to eat from this tree, why did He put it here?


• God loves us, He cannot put something dangerous within our reach. Maybe He is not warning us, He is just scaring us.


• The fruit is desirable we wonder how it tastes.


• We are told that we will die, how does it feel to die? Maybe we will have to try and find out how it feels to be dead.


• The tree is called “tree of the knowledge of good and evil”. We know what ‘good’ is, but we wonder what ‘evil’ is. Maybe we can find out.

 There are things that we can do easily but it is impossible to undo them. Once Adam and Eve tasted the fruit, it was a done deal. If they could see in advance what would happen to them and their descendants; the kind of evil that would come to the world, I don’t think they could have given in to the seductions of the evil one. 

A good steward does the master’s bidding without kidding. A steward must not contend with his master. We are surrounded by things that are attractive. We have to know that even if those things are in our custody, they may not be ours for use except to delight our eyes upon. Isn’t it enough to behold the beauty of something in our vicinity? 

A less frequently used antidote which was supposed to complement curiosity killed the cat is but satisfaction brought it back. If God has given us something but for one reason or another we reach out our hand to take also what He hasn’t given to us, nothing will ever satisfy us however much of everything we will get. Good stewardship is training ourselves to be content with what we have been given. Contentment doesn’t necessarily mean having everything we need or want, rather, it means learning to do with what we have and making the most out of the circumstances. 

May I repeat: If you don’t learn to be contented with what God has given you, reaching out to take what He hasn’t given you will never ever give you satisfaction. It doesn’t matter how rich one is, contentment will always elude him. Consider how Mart De Haan (in Our Daily Bread, 15.11.2014) put it: “Discontentment makes rich people poor, while contentment makes poor people rich.”