Hero dog risks life to save kittens from fire

            In October of 2008, the residents of Melbourne, Australia hailed a hero. He was a terrier-cross named Leo. He was a dog.

            A fire had broken out during the night at a residence in that Australian city. Leo refused to leave the house, instead, steadfastly guarding a box containing a litter of kittens until firefighters arrived and saved the young ones.

            Rescue personnel had to revive Leo using oxygen and heart massage.

"Leo wouldn't leave the kittens and it nearly cost him his life," Commander Ken Brown reported to the press. And, yes, the kittens survived.

            So many in creation have been endowed with the instinct and desire to save others, even at the expense of one’s own life. When Jesus called upon His disciples to “deny yourself, take up your cross daily, and follow me”, He was not calling them to cruel service. Instead, He was summoning them to conform to the standard by which they had been designed by their Creator. This holds true today.

“Gator-guzzling python comes to messy end”

A few years ago, I came across an article on MSNBC with the aforementioned title. A 13-foot Burmese python, who had escaped his owner or been let go in the Florida Everglades, had come upon a six-foot-long alligator and thought he saw a delicious supper. He was mistaken. What he thought would satisfy his appetite, instead created a mess, according to authorities, of horror-movie proportions.

Frank Mazzotti, a University of Florida wildlife professor, summarized the catastrophe in this way: the alligator evidently clawed at the python’s stomach as the snake was attempting to digest it. When experts arrived on the scene, the alligator’s legs were protruding from the snake’s midsection. By then, the snake was dead.

Through the years, I have seen folks who thought they found the ideal meal to satisfy their appetites, only to arrive at similar ends. Some swallowed substances that created life-destroying addictions. Others found their insides torn up from worry. Still others burned up internal organs from ingesting anger.

Jesus seemed to understand the human appetite is potentially dangerous and we need to satisfy it in a proper manner. After all, it was Jesus who said, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.”