Guard cats and fear alarms

Because it had a likeness of our black-and-gray tabby, named Augie, our neighbor couldn’t resist buying me this sign for the window: “Beware: Guard cat on duty.” Ha! The only thing he guards is his food dish. Whenever he comes inside, he pads over to his water and food dishes and sits about eighteen inches away from them like, Read my mind. Thus I was a bit amused the other day when I answered the door to a muscular fireman and his petite woman assistant. I was expecting them for a smoke alarm program the fire department is conducting. But I wasn’t prepared for his opening remark: “Do you have a cat? Would you please put him out? We’re allergic to cats.”

Dutifully I scooped the lazy lug from his sleeping corner and deposited him in the chilly shock of “outside.” They proceeded with their ten-minute smoke alarm business. When they got ready to leave, Augie was waiting on the front porch, eager to get back to the warm indoors. The sight of him alarmed (no pun intended) the woman assistant, who again pleaded “allergy!” So once again I had to remove the cat, this time from the porch. Funny, there were no allergy flare-ups while they were in our home (which has eleven years' worth of cat dander in it). And our overweight, geriatric feline is the antithesis of vicious, with the rare exception of guarding the back yard from Pancho Villa and Ho Chi Minh (my nicknames for the local desperado cats who dare to invade his home turf). They haven’t been around much since I threw a rotten tomato in their yowling direction.

Our cat’s wimpy representation of the idea of “guarding” helped me appreciate even more the spiritual concept of “guard.” Even a thousand burly firemen (not the “allergic” ones) can’t come close to the “guarding” we’re promised in Philippians 4:7: “And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus” (KJV). One of the key words in this passage is “keep” (more accurately, “guard” in NIV, NASB, ESV, and the New King James). The Amplified version puts it: “shall garrison and mount guard over your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”

The translation makes a difference. “Keep” has a passive sense, like putting a keepsake in a cedar chest. “Guard” implies deliberate, powerful action. The original Greek, phroureo, was a military term and referred to guarding in a garrison. Of this, Greek scholar W.E. Vine remarked that it described not just protection but “inward garrison as by the Holy Spirit.” One Bible scholar said it’s the peace of “holy repose” that floods the believer’s soul when he leans hard on God. It’s being able to say, “The news or situation is bad, but God is bigger than this and I will trust Him.” Or, as Frances Ridley Havergal wrote in the refrain to the beloved hymn “Like a River Glorious”:
Stayed upon Jehovah,
Hearts are fully blessed;
Finding, as He promised,
Perfect peace and rest.
Remember that, next time your “fear alarm” goes off. Your Holy Guard stands ready.