My Inner Lion

I can't remember the exact year but it was either when I was in high school or just out of high school.  I was sitting around with a couple of friends and one of them said, "You know when I see people I see them as animals."  I asked her what she meant by that.  She explained that she saw people and then based on some quality that they had (might be looks, personality, etc) her mind immediately assigned that person a representative from the animal kingdom.

Awesome!

So I asked her about some friends, teachers, and other people.  She had an animal for all of them and it fit them very well.  (I wonder if that was her spiritual gift, just kidding.)

Finally, I got around to asking her what I really wanted to know.  What animal do you see when you see me?  I had no idea what animal I wanted to be.  I wanted to be something cool, but there are a lot of cool animals.  Maybe she would see me as a Tiger, or a Bear, or a shark or something.  Honestly I was not ready to hear what she told me.

"When I see you a see a lion."

The king of the jungle.  I'll take it!

I am a lion.  I can't tell you how many times I have thought about that.  At least once a week I think about how a person saw me and saw a lion.

To put this in perspective, when she told me that she saw me as a lion, I was not yet married and didn't have any children or college education.  I had only lived in South Dakota and had not even held a real job.  That was probably about 15 years ago.  I have been prowling around for 15 years.

When we went to Uganda I only wanted one thing to bring home for my office, a lion.  Here is a picture from my office.  I have the large lion in the middle with all the other animals around it.


Of course, being a Christian, I love being a lion.  Jesus is described as a lion.  He is powerful and has authority.  He is the essence of strength and courage.

But....

Satan is also described as a lion.  Satan is a lion prowling around looking for people to devour.

I guess I need to be careful with my lion-ness.  I could use it to destroy or to build.  Am I a weak lion wanting to lash out in anger and hurt people or am I a strong lion looking to protect those who are weaker?

Am I really even a lion?  Or is it just something that I want to hold onto to feel special about myself?  Has it become some sort of coping mechanism for life?  When I am intimidated by someone or something do I start to believe I have some inner lion that gives me strength?  Does that mean I have some type of superhero complex?

What about you?

What animal are you?  Is there a particular animal that you relate to?

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