Tuesday, March 15, 2011

I am not freakin Lion

     This is one that has been roaming around the empty skull for quite a while trying to find a proper moral.  Due to recent events it got me to thinking about it.

     Have you ever watched Animal Planet or Discovery and watched a pride of lions.  It is a very interesting social system.  From whether the pride is ruled by one male or by three teaming together, all the work is done by the female lions, all the males really do is make sure no other males come into the territory.  But specifically, have you ever watched lions at a kill.  Most channels will not show you the horror of a lion kill.  The brutality is too aweful to watch sometimes, the fact that the animal is basically still alive when the lions begin to consume it, how they go after the high nutrient items in the body first, namely the organs, horrifically the first thing consumed is the sexual organs.  But I am not here to gross you out with this, what I am trying to do is give you the appropriate visual.  Imagine a group of lions at a kill, what is it they usually do, not even really usually, it is like this at every kill.  They fight.  The scratch, bite, claw, and do everything you can imagine to hurt each other so that the best portions of the kill can go into their stomachs.  The weaker and smaller lions have to wait in the outskirts because it is not uncommon to be killed themselves if they try to interfere.  The icing on the cake is if the males that rule the pride come along, they will kill any female or young that even attempts to keep him from taking the entire meal for himself.  How can we relate such a gruesome spectacle of nature into our everyday lives, like this...

     Moral- We most commonly see this in the workplace, but it can be applied to any social setting where there is a hierarchy involved.  We encounter people in our jobs who behave just like the lions, the will do anything they can to get ahead.  That promotion, that raise, the better office, the company car, the best office location, there is nothing they will not do to achieve these things.  These are the people who are all about the here and now, the brass ring.  They want what they think is the good life, and they want it when they are young.  The enemy among us convinces us that these are the things that we want in life, and we are actually looked at in society as failures if we do kick and scratch like a bunch of lions at the kill.  Often times it even seems as if the people that we work for look for the lions when it comes to promotion time, they want that aggressiveness, killers mean profits, profits satisfy the here and now for them.  So what are we to do as the meek and mild turn the other cheek Christians, is this the life God wants for us, is this who He wants us to be?  How is a humble Christian supposed to get ahead in this world?  The answer- we can't.  I wish that I had a better answer for you, but the reality is, we can't get ahead unless we become a lion.  Clearly, from scripture we know that this is not the life Christ had in mind for us, it is not the life He wants us to lead.  "You will be hated all over the world because you are my followers (Matt. 24:9).  I highly recommend reading in Matthew 20 the parable of the vineyard workers.  Do not be jealous that sometimes the world is kind to those we don't think are worthy of it, Jesus said 'So those who are last now will be first then, and those who are first will be last.' (Matt 20:16)  There is no comfort is the bloggable, it is not written to give you that warm fuzzy feeling, its the truth.  We have to live lives not seeking the things that society claim as valuable, but seek those things that God deems valuable, and God will give us what we need.  The harder you strive to swim against the current of the river you will find the more you either stay in place and go nowhere, or, you will eventually see that you are moving backwards.  God wants us to swim with the current, His current, and when we do, we find that there is little effort actually involved in order to get where He wants us to be.  No amount of amassing wealth or posessions of this earth will we be able to take with us.  At your funeral they will not read your bank statement.  Your wealth is in the Kingdom of Heaven, your reward is there for your faithful service.  Try to imagine this, every strike that Jesus took for you will be the bad times you will have in your life, and like Him, we must sometimes endure pain to achieve glory.  No one talks about how many promotions you got in your Eulogy.  No one really cares how much money you will leave behind either, and the one's that do, are lion through their teeth.  JT

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