Thanksgiving is coming soon and I’m sure to right a blog pertaining to it, but not right now. However, there are many constants on my normal Thanksgiving day and it has become a family tradition to watch “our lions” play football. For those of you who don’t care for football let me give you a little insight. The lions basically have been the worst football team in the league since the 50’s so losing is as much of a tradition for them as anything. They also have had a tradition of being one of two teams that always plays on thanksgiving days. Most seasons this is like the super-bowl for lions fans because while they may stink it up the entire year, they somehow (usually) find a way to play really well on thanksgiving. This year they have lost all of their 11 games and will be playing a team that has only lost once this entire year….not exactly a favorable matchup!!! Regardless, this blog goes out to them and I guess to you too. Enjoy 🙂
I spent a half year over in Senegal teaching at Dakar Academy a little over a year ago. Actually, some of my students are going to be following this blog this upcoming year and I really ought to introduce you to some of them because they are seriously going to rock this world!!! They give me hope and further cement my belief that children and youth are not the future- YOU ARE THE PRESENT!!! Do not let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity (1 Tim. 4;11-12)
While in Dakar, I went to a zoo from time to time that was literally a block away from the school. I was told that it would make me sad to go in and see the animals and that expectation unfortunately didn’t disappoint. I’m pretty sure I paid less than 50 cents to get into the zoo. I meandered through the animals and watched as they lounged about. However, I got to the cages where the lions were and I stopped and sat down to watch them. I literally sat there for a good 45 minutes just watching and thinking…and here were a few of my thoughts for those who haven’t heard this story before…
The first cage housed to male lions (one is pictured left.) One of these lions was lying on it’s side running through it’s dreams much like a dog would here. You can see the paws moving and the restlessness of the heart that leaves him more tired than when he first went to sleep. This old guy must be dreaming of days past and glory spent romping through meadows and fields. He must know what it was like to be free from cages and people and what it was like to truly just run free…What disappointment awaits his awakening that this is not the life he knows he’s not created for?
I shift my glance to the other male who blankly stares at me with a dullness that echoes in my heart and makes me want to slap him in the face to wake him up! Just then he opens up his mouth and let’s out a resonating….moo? Seriously, I have some friends (Loewens) who used to have a sheep that could moo more powerfully than that lion!! It was a bellow and a somber cry- a groan of hope lost and a despair that filled the air like a blanket on a muggy day.
The lioness to my left looks up slowly to recognize his pain and then slowly glances at me to see my response. She lays motionless next to her three little cubs all in a row. None of the little guys are running around playing with each other. None are nipping at their momma. Instead they just sit there and swat flies trying to emulate what lions do from the examples they have. It hits me that these little guys probably don’t dream too much about running like the old guy once did…and if they do, how long before they give it up as just a cubs youthful and unrealistic desire??? I walk closer and want to whisper to them that they were made for it even if the other lions aren’t living it…They were still created to be the king of the jungle!!!
I approach the 4 of them and it is then that I realize something devastating. Their ears are like half eaten!!! It doesn’t take long to realize that the king of the jungle is literally getting eaten alive by the smallest of pests- flies!!! I mean c’mon now- THEY”RE FLIES?!?!? But, I suppose they can’t leave those cages and those flies just keep coming day in and day out. The little cubs ears seem to be more in tact and more tender but it won’t be long before their ears will be numb too and then the flies can feast on their them even more.
I quietly find myself another stump to watch both sets of cages as my heart and mind are filled with all sorts of thoughts. Meanwhile, a trainer comes by with some food and grabs my attention. Now skittish, the lions flee to the back of the cages as the zoo keeper hits the bars with a stick before throwing the food in on the filthy dirt floor…and BAM!!!! It hit’s me!!! My heart wells up with a grief nearly overflowing that these lions have been conditioned to think that those bars were there for their own protection…not ours!!! I mean think about it….If you sat in a cage everyday for everyone to see and people came by to stare at you as a spectacle thinking ok so they are a lion, but where is their power? Meanwhile, every time you are fed, you are beaten first with a stick…wouldn’t you start to think that those bars are there for your safety? Does that sadden you as much as it does me?
OK Benny, so what does this have to do with me? Well…let me tell you…right after I let Marianne Williamson tell you:
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear
is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness,
that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous,
talented and fabulous?
Actually who are we not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small doesn’t serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking
so that other people
won’t feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine as children do.
We were born to make manifest
the glory of God that is within us.
It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone.
And when we let our own light shine,
we unconsciously give other people
permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.
That’s what I am talking about…how many of us have grown up like those little cubs with desires and dreams that seem profoundly free and exhilarating only to have been taught that it’s just not realistic…that they are just youthful hopes?? How many of us grew up longing to run free and live life abundantly only to find ourselves with jobs, school, more school, overtime to pay for it, houses, toys, responsibilities and a life filled with a groan that covers us like a blanket on a muggy day…can we ever escape that? Is it too late? Are we allowed to? Conventional wisdom says we are setting up our safety but are we just setting up a structure around us that has walled us in and barred us up so that others look at our lives and say “hmmm…where is their life? where is their power? Don’t they know who they are and what they were created for???”
How many of us have started off tender hearted and full of joy only to have learned through the school of hard knocks that life isn’t fair and so you’ve got to get what you can, can (or save) all you get, and then sit on your can and hope for the best…How many of us have let ourselves become numb to truly listening to others or truly loving others? Doesn’t it just hurt too much to love and lose…or even love and lose twice? How many of us have said silently (or not so silently) that we aren’t going to make that mistake again…we will keep our hearts hard until we know we can trust again- if we can?
Have the lies of the flies gotten to us yet? Have you heard the whispers incessantly saying “you’ll never do that…you’re not strong enough…if you were only more beautiful…only more thin…only more successful…if you had a better job…if you were dating someone…if you were just married…if you had a family…if you have an affair…there’s no hope…they’ll do it to you again…fool me once shame on you but fool me twice shame on me…everyone else is doing it…and you call yourself a ….you’re just like everyone else…you’ll never change…they really don’t love you…you’re all alone..” WHERE do you think those thoughts come from?? From You? DO you honestly think that every thought that goes through your head is yours??? Stop and think about that one for a second…I can rant on that one for quite some time if you need to hear it!!! Just let me know 🙂
In our lifetime, we lose some battles and those flies try to get us to focus on all of the ones we’ve lost so that we won’t fight the ones we’re in. Those doubts and fears, disappointments and frustrations start to sound insurmountable. You know what though…the war is already won and we’d be better off to find our confidence in that than the skirmishes we lose…Likewise, don’t stop fighting once you’ve had a small victory. Enjoy it and celebrate it, but don’t lose the next battle because you’re not prepared…those flies will try to eat you up and numb you down, but if we knew how small and little power they have compared to what we have…who we are…wow, wouldn’t that change the way we live?
What I think is sad to me is that this world is full of people who don’t know who they are. They don’t understand what they have been created for. Even scarier yet is that it seems like the few that seem to understand the power they actually have in life tend to spend it on themselves. History is strewn with stories of terrible men using their power in the most awful of ways. DO you know that there is much more power in good than evil? Do you not know that light ALWAYS overcomes darkness? Go ahead and try sitting in your closet…the darkness of the closet will not once seep into the light of the other room…It’s almost as if we have been taught to be nice little cubs in a forsaken world…find a safe place and wait out the storm…
Newsflash for ya: Lions weren’t created to be tame…They were not created to be nice…
Second Newslfash: He’s called the LION OF JUDAH for a reason…if you don’t serve an offensive, awful (the correct definition of the word,) real, powerful and Good God, then who do you serve?
When you put it into perspective you really have two choices…be a slave to Christ or a slave to this world…which do you choose? Only one leads to freedom and life!
Anyway, I’ve got more to say about all this but there’s a good chance you’ve had a lot to read (because I’ve had a lot to write.) I will address the other things at a different time maybe…All I know is that we were meant to be free and to live life abundantly…if you are not, then it’s time you start asking yourself how do I get there? The bad news is that you can’t do it on your own. The better news is that you can’t do it on your own. Ask Him how to surrender…it will take all that you have and it will cost all that you are…but what you gain in return is better than anything your filthy rags can gain…
In the meantime, I hope my lions stop trying to find a way to lose games…they play as a defeated team and they will continue to until they realize they are NFL players and with unity can actually win some games…My hope is that you stop living like you’re defeated…so you lost a battle or two? Me too! I’ve lost my fair share and then some….sometimes I lose battles to remember what it feels like (or so it seems.) You know what though, every time I do, He is still there waiting for me to get up from puddle of stench and to continue on walking…
It’s not easy but it’s worth it!!! And I will leave you how rambo once put it…”I’d rather have 3 lions than 10,000 sheep…” Are you too proper to roar?
