One snowy day around 1000 BC, in some small mountain area just outside Jerusalem came a man walking through the snow which was blowing through his face. The snow had accumulated to about six inches thick on the ground. The man was wearing a bear skin cloak that protected him from the bitter cold, his beard and eye brows had turned white from the frozen snow. Suddenly, out of the woods leaps a Lion. The Lion shakes off snow from its mane and stares coldly at the man. Lions weigh up to 56 kilograms, they can reach speeds of up to 56 kilometres per hour, and can jump 5 meters in a single leap. Now man and beast look eye to eye, their frozen breathe rises as steam. The natural progression of things would be that the man turns and runs and the Lion chases after him, but this time nothing like that happens. Something literally mind-blowing, something never witnessed before in history happens. The man begins full sprint at the Lion. He began the chase and the Lion turns and run from the man, both run breaking limbs and small trees standing in their way. Suddenly the snow gave way under the very powerful paws of the Lion, and the Lion crashes into a snowy pit. Our man stops at the edge of the pit, peers down at the trapped Lion, and then leaps to the depth of the pit.
Come to think of it!!! Who does that? Who is insane enough to do that? Although the bible did not give a blow by blow description, I believe it was the scariest moment of the man’s life. He stood inches away from thirty deadly teeth; he could smell the Lion’s breathe, then the pit grew silent, a silence that seemed like eternity, and suddenly out of the pit comes our man. The Lion is dead! The man’s name is BENAIAH. He is the Lion chaser. The man who killed a Lion without a weapon as stated in the bible.
Friends “Benaiah” could have run away and no one would blame him, no one would have thought any less of him if he turned and ran from the Lion. He could have played it safe and no one would have referred to him as a coward. The most logical decision would have been to turn and run for his dear life, but if “Benaiah” had done any of these, if he had not gone after the Lion, no one would have ever known his name. He would have been buried in the annals of history.
Do you want to be a Lion chaser? Lion chasers are a rare breed of people. You have to develop a winning attitude; the choice to chase the Lion comes from the heart not the head. Lion chasers think outside the box. Our society wants us to be normal. All of our lives we have been programmed for normality and conformity, but this is not the intent of God in creating us, the bible says we are gods, sons of the most high God. We are created for the extraordinary, we are made to chase Lions and not live mediocre lives. Learn to see outside the box, see beyond where you are in life. Where you start does not matter, but where and how you end up does.
In life we all have Lions we face, these Lions maybe in the form of your relationship:…..You don’t see how it will work out, Lions in the form of your career or in your finances, it does not seem like you will ever find a job or get out of debt, “you don’t know how you will fulfil your dreams”. Lions in your health, doctors have said you are not going to get well. A lot of times we pray about our Lions, God please help me, God help my partner change, God give me a better job or do this and that.
Oh yes it is good to pray, to ask for help, but when you face a Lion, it is not enough to pray. It is not enough to believe it will turn and go and not attack you. Here is what you do: you have to attack your Lion. You have to chase the Lion. If you don’t attack life, life will attack you. What is that fear holding you back? You don’t pray about it, you face your fears. 2 Timothy 1 tells us “God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and love and of a sound mind.”
As we go through life daily, we are going to have Lions that would try to keep us from God’s best. Yes it’s good to pray, it’s good to believe, it’s good to quote scriptures and speak in tongues, but remember you don’t ask Lions to leave your life. You CHASE them.