The Lion and the Lamb

Christ is referred to as "The Lion of the Tribe of Judah" in Rev. 5:4 and he is called "The Lamb of God" by John in his Gospel, chapter 1, verse 29. Now, these two animals are about as far apart on just about any "animal scale" you care to imagine. So I guess this is saying that Jesus can be the Lion or the Lamb as the situation requires...

This makes me think of other extremes, the ones that influence our lives.  When I wrote this, I was sitting in a hospital room with my 22 year-old daughter who was under going a several-days-long series of tests to see if they could better determine the cause of her seizures. Caryn has had night-related seizures since she was about 6. They've never been completely under control; not by drugs, not even by a Vagus Nerve Stimulator (VNS) implanted in her chest. Because of this, the next thing to consider, unfortunately, could be brain surgery. Scary.  Very... rock-like in appearance.

These are the times we want The Lion to come roaring out of the jungle & scare away all the things that scare us. So... where is this lion? When WE think we need him most, sometimes He's just not there. It's the most puzzling thing about Him; why sometimes when we pray we don't get the answer we expect. This life is full of things bigger than we are, things we can't control, accidents, illness, seizures, death; scary things. Things that seem to need a Lion to take care of them. But... where is this lion when these "rocks" fall in our laps?

If we are lucky, at some point we come to the conclusion that it is a fact that He's not always what we expect him to be, is he?  Some of the disciples expected him to be the Lion of Judah and become King of Israel & drive out the Romans but instead he was the Lamb of God, sacrificed to restore us to right relationship with the Father.  Nobody saw that coming, it wasn't what anyone thought was needed at the time but He saw from a different perspective.  But how are we supposed to handle that? By Faith.  Faith bridges the gap between what we see and what we need. 

In Matt 7:9 the question is asked how many fathers would give their sons a stone if they ask for bread?  It's a silly question, isn't it.  Oh, we might slip a rock on to a child's plate and tell him it's bread just to see him try to chew it, but when push comes to shove and our kids need bread... they get bread.  Now, I've seen some pretty rustic bread in my time.  Dark brown, heavy, rough crusted, and hard to chew but wonderfully delicious bread.  So I know that what can look like a rock, maybe even feel a bit like a rock can actually be life-giving bread.

When you have need in your life, when what you see is looking nothing like bread, stop.  Take a deep breath and remember you don't see what the Father sees.  Have Faith that He will not give you a rock.