Have you ever been in a den of lions?
You are called in to your boss’s office and when you open the door, there is your department supervisor and the head of HR. It feels like you are walking in to a lions’ den.
You are sitting at your dining room table with bills piled high. There’s another stack of letters too: the eviction notice, the termination date, the warning that they will soon take the car back. You’re surrounded with troubles that are tearing you apart.
You are at the bedside of your loved one. The door opens and here comes your doctor and the consultant and the charge nurse and the chaplain. You know that life is about to close in on you.
You are in a church Board meeting and – out of the blue – people who love each other start clawing and tearing at each other. You can’t believe your ears. What could possibly be so important that Christian friends would devour each other? You wish an angel would show up and shut all their mouths.
Whatever the particular lions’ dens that have threatened you over the course of your life, whatever the details, we all can say we’ve been there, done that.
And I’m guessing – on the other side of all these troubles – many of us might say, like Daniel: “God saved me.”
Maybe God hasn’t saved us in exactly the same way, not in the way our storyteller describes – but somehow, in some mystery – we knew we were not alone.
We knew we found strength beyond our own strength, wisdom beyond our own wisdom, endurance that we never could have imagined.
And we know – God was somehow in it all, walking with us, carrying us, leading us, nudging us, protecting us.
Continue reading “In the Lions’ Den”