A Prowling Predator
The image in this verse of a roaring lion was particularly meaningful to friends of mine years ago in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.
One sunny, south Florida day, Tom and Nancy’s (not their real names) little boy, David, was playing on the sidewalk in front of their home.
They lived in a beautiful neighborhood with only one problem: the people across the street from them harbored a lion behind tall, stucco walls.
He was caged and supposedly unable to harm anyone. The legal system was moving slowly to force the removal of this wild creature from a residential neighborhood, but those efforts were too late for David.
Somehow the lion escaped from his cage, scaled the wall, and ambled across the street toward David and his older brother, Bobby.
The lion circled David and let out a roar. Bobby ran into the house, screaming for his parents.
Tom and Nancy ran outside and faced the horror of seeing David’s head and shoulders trapped inside the lion’s mouth.
Without thinking about either danger or impossibility, Tom gripped the lion’s jaws and pried them open.
David’s limp body fell out of the lion’s mouth and amazingly, the beast lost interest and walked back home.
David was rushed to the hospital and while being wheeled into the operating room, he asked his mom to sing “Jesus Loves Me” to him.
David survived, and everyone who heard about the event marveled at Tom’s ability to open the jaws of a lion.
Tom knew he didn’t do that on his own and fully acknowledged the power of God to intervene in a miraculous way to save David’s life.
That day Tom accepted Christ into his heart with unspeakable thankfulness.
Few of us will have as graphic an example of the devil stalking about the streets of our hometowns, but we can all acknowledge the presence and power of evil in our world.
Certainly, we who are Americans tasted evil on that fateful day when we watched so many thousands of people lose their lives in the attacks on the World Trade Center.
But Satan doesn’t always come with such a definition. Subtle devices are his specialty.
He uses discouragement, distraction, busyness, greed, selfishness, and a host of other means to wield his power.
The good news is that his power is limited. While Scripture reveals the power of the evil one, it also testifies that God’s power is greater.
This verse tells us to be “self-controlled and alert.” With protection against temptation and awareness of Satan’s wiles, we do not need to fear the power of the roaring lion.
Like Tom, we can experience supernatural strength in overcoming evil with good.
Father, we are so aware of evil when it comes in graphic ways, but we are sometimes unaware of the more subtle moves of the evil one. Help us to discern good from evil and protect us always.