Tamer Lions!

           Life can be tough sometimes. Like the lion tamer who put this terse ad’ in the newspaper: "Lion tamer looking for tamer lion." Anything or anybody in your life you wish was "tamer"? From time to time most of us find ourselves face to face with circumstances or people who cause problems and pressures and pain in our lives. The problems range from mild irritation to major frustration. In the words of the Bible in James 1:2b, we sometimes "fall into various trials." Unlike much comfy and convenience-oriented contemporary religion, the Bible teaches God’s children to expect "the sufferings of this present time," even as we weigh them against "the glory which shall be revealed" (Romans 8:18). That glory is ahead in a time and place when all the lions that threaten us here will be tamed – when, "God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away." Meanwhile, whether preachers and modern day purveyors of so-called "health-and- wealth, name-it-and claim it, feel-good religion" ever get round to telling us or not, we all live in a world where "the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour" (1 Peter 5:8).

                 We might all wish for tamer lions. But what if your lions can’t be tamed? What if you are locked in a cage of painful circumstances you can’t control or escape or make "tamer"? A verse from the pen of the apostle Paul speaks to that very situation. In Romans 12:12 he wrote ten words that won’t necessarily make the lions in our lives tamer but will help to make us tougher and better able to cope with the untamed lions– "rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer." Amazing counsel. Instead of the "life-is-not-fair, I’m a helpless victim" attitude of so many people who wallow in a sea of self-pity, the apostle calls us to choose a nobler path! Christian joy is grounded in nothing less than the hope of heaven, and we can hold on to joy and hope anchored there. We can be patient although in pain. We can maintain a steady prayer life even in the midst of life’s trouble, trials and tears. Or we can choose the well-worn path and sit and sour and sulk and bitterly complain about how unfair life is. Some wit said, "Suffering is inevitable, but misery is optional." Victor Frankl saw a lot of suffering and faced some untameable circumstances. He was an Austrian neurologist and a Holocaust survivor. In Man’s Search For Meaning (1948), a book about his experience as an Auschwitz concentration inmate during World War II, Frankl noted there were a few men who walked through the camp huts comforting and giving away their last piece of bread. Frankl wrote, "They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of his freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way." Here’s the bottom line: I can’t always control painful circumstances and people in my life, but I can always control my attitude. I may never tame all the lions in my life, but neither do I have to let the lions tame me – "through faith ... stopped the mouths of lions" (Hebrews 11:33b). Think about it. 

   By: Dan Gulley, Smithville, TN