Protected by a Lion

-

I was weary from being battled. I lay in the arms of the Lord. I had no energy. I had lost all desire. I had lost all will. Just then the enemy came upon me again. He slithered in upon the scene, and I saw him. I was so weary from fighting him day and night and night and day that I could not bring myself to move.


“Lord, he is here,” I turned to the King who held me.

Suddenly, he leapt from his spot and landed on my enemy like a lion. The lion bit down on the enemy and tore him to shreds. When my enemy was no more, the lion returned to me and sat before me.

I wrapped my arms about the great creature’s neck and held on. As I held on to him, he began to bury his muzzle into my hair and breathe, causing it to fly up.

“Are you playing with my hair?” I asked the lion.

Then the lion began to bite my shoulder and neck playfully. Never hard enough to hurt, hardly even a pinch. I laughed and he went on nibbling on me until I had fallen onto my back. He nibbled on my arm, and I kept right on laughing. At last I looked up, and he was no longer a lion but himself, the Lord, the King as I had known him a short while before.

I looked into his eyes. The realization that he had just protected me and then cheered me up, began to come over me. He smiled at me, and I was overwhelmed. I cried and held on to him, stating, “I love you.”

“I know you do,” He replied. There was no need for him to say it to me because I knew by what he had done that loved me. He always loves me, even when I don’t deserve it.

Sometimes the battle is hard. Sometimes we lose hope and even the will to fight. But he is there. He will fight for us. In our weakness, he is strong (2 Corinthians12:9). Make your battle line with the lion. He will lead the charge and gain the victory, and we will be able to rest in his strength and peace.




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A God in Our Own Image

-
Image
It has always been interesting to me how you can meet so many people that all claim to believe in the same god, and yet their views of him and the ways that they describe his character are strictly individualistic. Or we can call those descriptions very “telling.” Their view of him is often small and flat…simple. To so many, the idea of god is a one-dimensional character with next-to-no depth or meaning.  Now, I recognize and fully support the concept of god being an individual, and that each person knows him differently. But one distinct difference is when I meet people who only believe in god as long as he matches and agrees with all their accepted beliefs. Therefore, the only response upon meeting someone that doesn’t think the same way and has a concept of god that is different, is to assume that the other person simply doesn’t believe in god. How arrogant. How truly conceited.  I have heard things like, “If you are a Christian, you can’t vote for so and so.” “How can you ...
Read more

The Storm

-
Image
The last few weeks…well, the last month or so have been some of the most challenging. I seem to find myself in these places often. The comforts and “guarantees” of the world are stripped away and I find myself fighting for a breath as the waves of this dark world crash over me. The beautiful facade that money and privilege afford society is pulled back and I see Truth. I see this place for what it truly is; dark, ugly, angry, selfish, fearful. I am tempted to build up my walls and be like them. The desire to become cynical rises up, but there is something in me that still calls me to be tender.  I lost my grandmother this past summer. I watched her pass from this world. It was not pretty or peaceful. It was painful and hard. I knew that in order to help my family with her care I had to shut down a part of myself. I knew that I had to set aside my own loss and pain in order to walk through that place. On the other side of it, alone, I allowed the pain to hit me.  In obedience, ...
Read more

Religion vs. Real Life

-
Image
A few days ago my husband and I took the kids to the park. We were in an area that we were not familiar with. We don’t know anything about anything or anyone in the little town nestled in the Virginia mountains.  There, along a river, is a small park. We pulled up and saw another family there. Allow me to add that, it just so happened that on this day, I had the courage to wear shorts. I have struggled so severely with my self image, and obsessed over hiding myself out of fear, that I didn’t even own a pair of shorts until last year when I got some because I just couldn’t take the Texas summer heat anymore. Still, I would wear them at home most of the time. But today, I was feeling free. I put on my shorts and took my kids to the park.  When we walked up to the playset, I could see that the family was dressed in…well, let's just say they were dressed in a way that would be obvious to most that they are part of a specific Christian religious group. I have zero problem with them...
Read more