Doves On Distant Oaks

Eyes on the Lion

I was watching a nature program that showed a pride of lions on the hunt. The scene was on the Serengeti Plains of Africa and the lions were following a herd of grazers, obviously looking for weak individuals and waiting for the opportunity to strike. That was not unusual ... lions hunt, it's their nature. What was unusual was that herd after herd of other grazers—buffalo, wildebeests, gazelles, elands, zebras, and so on—were following the lions. It looked like one giant parade of animals with each herd looking like a different marching band crossing the plains.

When you're a grazer on the open plains, one of the most important things you can do to insure your own survival is to be aware of where the lions are. Of course, there are other dangers, but each of those herds were following the lions because it meant they knew if they could see them, they were much safer. The worst place to be is to have the lion following you, stalking you.

In the same way, we need to be keep our eye on the Evil One and his army of fallen angels. Peter compares our Enemy to a roaring lion and we need to be alert to His presence. It is his nature to devour us, consume our soul. He does this by attacking us at our weakest points. We need to be aware of those chinks in our own armor—our Achilles Heels—because that's where we're most vulnerable. We probably know what they are because that's where we've been attacked before. If we've been attacked there before, rest assured the Enemy will do so again. We need to be alert to his attacks, all the time, because they come at us relentlessly.

Yet we have a strong ally. He's an ally so strong that He can easily defeat the Enemy, but we must call upon Him. Christ is our strength, yet distraction is the Enemy's greatest tool. When we drop our guard and forget that Christ is the author of the Evil Ones defeat, or worse, think we don't need him, we easily fall.

When that happens we can gain hope from the fact that we are not alone in our battle, nor alone in our failures. We are part of a larger army ourselves, one we can tap into. There is an assumption that the world has grown smaller because of how inter-connected the world has become. That has resulted in a theory called Six Degrees of Separation. The basic premise is that everyone in the world can be connected to any other person by going through (on average) only six other people. As followers of Christ, we have an even better connection.

All followers of Christ are connected by one Spirit, the Holy Spirit. We access that Spirit through prayer, and as we pray for bothers and sisters in Christ around the world to withstand the Evil One, we can rest assured that they are praying for us.

We are never alone.

Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world.

– 1 Peter 5:8-9