Conquering Lion

God is all we will ever need.

Let that soak in. For the first time, or at least in a while, I really felt the love of GOD. He has been showing me lately the personalities and the beautiful relationship of the Trinity. I feel like I’ve fallen in love with Jesus, who’s so easy to befriend but my heavenly Father was beckoning me to come sit on His lap. A couple nights ago, someone illustrated God as a lion, like Aslan. She read a portion of the Chronicles of Narnia…

"Aslan?" said Mr. Beaver. "Why, don't you know? He's the King. He's the Lord of the whole wood, but not often here, you understand. Never in my time or my father's time. But the word has reached us that he has come back. He is in Narnia at this moment. He'll settle the White Queen all right. It is he, not you, that will save Mr. Tumnus."

"Is—is he a man?" asked Lucy.

"Aslan a man!" Mr. Beaver said sternly. "Certainly not. I tell you he is the King of the wood and the son of the great Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea. Don't you know who is the King of Beasts? Aslan is a lion—the Lion, the great Lion."

"Ooh!" said Susan, "I'd thought he was a man. Is he—quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion."

"That you will, dearie, and no mistake," said Mrs. Beaver; "if there's anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they're either braver than most or else just silly."

I love that Aslan is not safe…anyone in His presence trembles. He is fierce and strong but also soft and love. He is power and strength but also compassion and grace. Just picture the great and beautiful lion in a pasture, He’s there looking at you with nothing but love in His eyes. He beckons you to lean against Him, feeling His warmth and power. He offers strength when you have none, peace when the storm is raging inside of us. I guess God has always intimidated me and I never really understood Him at all. He is so great and mighty but is intimately acquainted with His children. WITH ME! I am His daughter; I am royalty. He fashioned my smile, my laugh, my eyes. He knew me before I was born; He knit every detail of me in the womb.

I had a distorted mentality that if I gave enough money or did enough service projects or knelt on my knees every night that I might somehow be worthy of Him. I was missing the point entirely. God doesn’t need me but by His grace and love, HE CHOSE ME. And all His desire is to have a relationship with me. I can’t put conditions on God. He works how He works. I was caught up in all the legalistics of religion while all He desires is a romance with Him. Like Paul did, I should embrace my weaknesses, because only through that can God work and show His glory. He chose lowly fishermen and tax collectors and prostitutes to reveal His glory through them.

I’ve made “surrender” some weird thing in my mind where if I surrender this part of my life God will be satisfied. I’ve been caught in the in-between. God wants EVERYTHING. Literally. He will NOT relent until we lose control. I got to the point where I felt like I was in a desert with no direction or sign telling me where to go. I searched for God but wasn’t willing to be vulnerable. I wanted things my way, but finally accepted that I am WEAK and NOT WORTHY and DON’T KNOW HOW TO DO ANYTHING. And I cried out to God and accepted my great NEED FOR HIM. When I finally closed my mouth and listened, He ever so gently and softly whispered, “All you need to know is that I love you and I’ll bring you through this.” God never ever says ‘suck it up’ or ‘get over it’ (even though we may deserve just that). Instead, He gets down on the ground beside us and gently and kindly with loving hands holds us and helps us up. But like sheep we can’t get up on our own, it takes a Shepherd, and even once we’re up we often fall again, just like sheep, but God remains patient. His love never fails, never gives up, never runs out. There is so much FREEDOM in a dependency on God. This statement makes no sense in man’s terms but it is the TRUTH. I have never in my life felt such a freedom. The Conquering Lion broke the chains from myself and my “being good enough”. All the weight is lifted so we can dance with Him.

This is all summed up in Colossians 2-3. Verses 11-14 and 20-23 say...

“Entering into this fullness is not something you figure out or achieve. It's not a matter of being circumcised or keeping a long list of laws. No, you're already in—insiders—not through some secretive initiation rite but rather through what Christ has already gone through for you, destroying the power of sin. If it's an initiation ritual you're after, you've already been through it by submitting to baptism. Going under the water was a burial of your old life; coming up out of it was a resurrection, God raising you from the dead as he did Christ. When you were stuck in your old sin-dead life, you were incapable of responding to God. God brought you alive—right along with Christ! Think of it! All sins forgiven, the slate wiped clean, that old arrest warrant canceled and nailed to Christ's cross. He stripped all the spiritual tyrants in the universe of their sham authority at the Cross and marched them naked through the streets…So, then, if with Christ you've put all that pretentious and infantile religion behind you, why do you let yourselves be bullied by it? "Don't touch this! Don't taste that! Don't go near this!" Do you think things that are here today and gone tomorrow are worth that kind of attention? Such things sound impressive if said in a deep enough voice. They even give the illusion of being pious and humble and ascetic. But they're just another way of showing off, making yourselves look important.”

And one more thing…

Ephesians 2:8-9 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.

I do not know how many hundreds of times I have read this verse. I’ve even memorized it. God has led me to the realization, plainly stated, that Faith is a GIFT from God. And without faith, it is impossible to please God. But faith comes from God. This shows once again our desperate need for Him. He calls us to have childlike faith. Think of what a child is like…children are skilled at letting their mom know that he needs her and for every need too. Children cry when they’re hungry, when they’re uncomfortable, when they’re distressed in any way. And that is exactly what God wants from us: a constant, desperate need of Him.

Evangeline