LION LINES
Without a doubt the most moving book I’ve read during sabbatical has been Mark Batterson’s “In a Pit with a Lion on a snowy day”.
I almost felt as if I needed to highlight the parts that I didn’t resonate with … because otherwise, I was just coloring the entire book!
The following are some of my thoughts, quotes that stirred me, or ideas that came through reading…
- · God is in the business of strategically positioning us in the right place at the right time.
- · The greatest opportunities are often the scariest lions. (R U CrAzY?)
- · Regrets of inaction are the greatest in life.
- · Goodness isn’t just the absence of badness.
- · Who said that following Jesus is supposed to be “safe”?
- · Lion chasers don’t let their fears or doubts keep them from doing what God called them to do.
- · Spiritual maturity is seeing and seizing God-sized opportunities.
- · Grab life by the Mane!
- · “How much happier you would be, how much more of you there would be, if the hammer of a higher God could smash your small cosmos.” GK Chesterton
- · God won’t intervene until something is humanly impossible. God loves impossible odds.
- · Too often our prayers revolve around the notion that we are asking God to “reduce the odds” in our life.
- · How you think about God will determine who you become.
- · Our problems seem really big because our God seems really small.
- · There is nothing “too hard” for God. So why do we rank our requests (Big/Small)? There are no degrees of difficulty for God.
- · How Big is Your God?
- · Don’t accumulate possessions in life. Accumulate experiences!
- · “What a story!” Those are the words that indicate a life well lived.
- · The greatest breakthroughs in life will come when you push through your fear.
- · Half of spiritual growth is learning what we do not know. The other half is unlearning what we do know. (Fear is learned. Fear can be unlearned).
- · Faith is unlearning the senseless worries.
- · Fear immunity is the result of facing fear.
- · One of the best things to happen for you and me is for our fear to materialize.
- · Your fear is worse than the actual thing you’re afraid of.
- · Think through your life, isn’t it true that the GREATEST moments of your life were also the scariest moments of your life?
- · The alternative to fear is boredom.
- · The church isn’t to be a bunker of safety but a battle to which we are called to storm the gates of Hell—it ought to be scary and FULL of life.
- · Do not aim your prayers at problem reduction.
- · Past problems prepare us for future opportunities. And the greatest problems present the greatest opportunities.
- · “From the days of John the Baptist until now, the Kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing, and forceful men lay hold of it!”
- · As Mickey said to Rocky, “The worst thing happened that could happen to any fighter—you got civilized.”
Has the church become too civilized?
PRAYER:
- · We pray for comfort instead of character.
- · We pray for an easy way instead of strength.
- · We pray for no pain.
- · BUT IF GOD ANSWERED THESE PRAYERS … HE WOULD ROB US.
- · Quit praying “safe prayers”.
- · Here is a thought: what if we really did that they did in the bible?
o For example, what if we fasted and prayed for 10 days like they did in anticipation of Pentecost?
- · People who do not live in prayer are opportunity blind.
- · When you are not praying, you have good ideas. When you pray, you get God ideas.
Here is a jewel on worship: “Don’t let what’s wrong with you keep you from worshiping what’s right with God.”
There are two kinds of people in this world:
- 1. Worshippers
- 2. Complainers
The more problems you have, the more potential you have to help people.
“To be certain of God means that we are uncertain in all our ways; we do not know what a day may bring. This is generally said with a sigh of sadness; it should be expression of breathless expectation!” Oswald Chambers
Facing your fears, chasing your lions – in the short-term it increases uncertainty; but in the long run, it reduces regrets.
- Sometimes you gotta run from security.
- · You don’t need to know what is coming next when you really believe that God knows.
- · We are control freaks. But faith is about the loss of certainty and control.
- · Faith is the willingness to embrace uncertainty and mystery.
- · The alternative is to have a puppet God whom we control.
- · Thank God for uncertainty and unpredictability. (The alternative is monotony).
- · Deuteronomy 29:29, “there are secrets the Lord has not revealed to us.”
- · God uses risk-takers.
o The more you are willing to risk, the more God can use you!
o Satan whispers, “Better safe than sorry.”
o Angels scream, “Nothing ventured nothing gained!”
- · God is always calling us into “terra incognita”.
- · Obedience is a willingness to do whatever, whenever, wherever.
- · Risk taking is the heart of righteousness.
- · The only regrets we will have at the end of our lives will be that we didn’t seek God more or seek God sooner. That’s it.
the fear of
“missing out”
must be greater than
the fear of
“messing up”
VALUES DISCUSSION:
- · Expect the unexpected
- · Playing it safe is risky
- · Maturity does not equal conformity
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.”
Mark Twain
“Hell begins the day God grants you the vision to see all that you could have done, and would have done, but did not do.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Anything less than taking a chance with God is just spiritual voyeurism.
Think of every opportunity as God’s gift to you. What you do with every opportunity is your Gift to God.
- · One of our greatest spiritual shortcomings is LOW EXPECTATIONS.
- o We don’t expect much. We don’t ask much.
- · More often than not the only thing between you and your dream is a rational excuse.
- · Down deep in all of us there is a primal longing to do something CRAZY for God. But our fear is that we would look foolish (there it is again … R U CrAzY?)
o Is it the fear of foolishness that keeps us from praying for a miracle?
o If you are not willing to look foolish … you ARE foolish!
And here it is again (R U CrAzy?)
“I have a catch phrase: Call me Crazy!”
1 Corinthians 1:27 … our CrAzY gOd …
Even worship is CrAzY!?!!!
- · Singing to someone you cannot see.
- · Raising your hands to someone you cannot touch.
But who is crazy? I’d like to think the crazy people are the ones who are not dancing … because they cannot hear the music.
Do not fear that your life
may come to an end.
fear that you may stop living before the end.
