2Sa 23:20 And Benaiah (Jehovah has built up) the son of Jehoiada,(known by Jehovah) the son of a valiant man, of Kabzeel, who had done many acts, he slew two lionlike men of Moab: he went down also and slew a lion in the midst of a pit in time of snow:
This obscure passage in Scripture that I doubt few have read and thought much about. It has absolutely no bearing on any major biblical doctrines. You may have read it a few times in a one-year Bible, but it probably didn’t even make a blip on your radar screen. Buried in the Old Testament is a wonderful inspirational passage:
There was also Benaiah son of Jehoiada, a valiant warrior from Kabzeel. He did many heroic deeds, which included killing two of Moab’s mightiest warriors. Another time he chased a lion down into a
pit. Then, despite the snow and slippery ground, he caught the lion and killed it.
It’s easy to read verses like this in the comfortable confines of your home or at church and totally miss the monumental acts of courage displayed by Benaiah. Have you ever met anyone or heard of anyone chasing a lion? Benaiah didn’t have a hunting rifle or Land Rover, And this was no game-park safari.
Scripture doesn’t tell us what Benaiah was doing or where he was
going when he encountered this lion. We don’t know the time of day
or Benaiah’s frame of mind. But Scripture does reveal his gut reaction.
And it was gutsy. It ranks as one of the most improbable reactions
recorded in Scripture.
Usually, when the image of a man-eating beast travels through the optical nerve and registers in the visual cortex, the brain has one over-arching message: Run away. Normal people run away from lions. They run as far and as fast as they possibly can. But lion chasers are wired differently.
For the vast majority of us, the only lions we’ve ever encountered
were stuffed or caged. And few of us have experienced hand-to-hand
combat that forced us to fight for our lives. But try to put yourself in
Benaiah’s snow shoes.
Out of the corner of his eye, Benaiah sees something crawling.
I don’t know how far away the lion is—and their vision is probably
obscured by falling snow and frozen breath—but there is a moment
when Benaiah and the lion lock eyes. Pupils dilate. Muscles tense.
Adrenaline rushes. Blood pressure escalates. Lion encounters tend to script the same way. Man runs away. Lion gives chase. And king of the beasts eats manwich for lunch. But not this time! the lion turns tail and Benaiah gives chase.
Lions can run up to thirty-five miles per hour and leap thirty
feet in a single bound. Benaiah doesn’t stand a chance, but that doesn’t
keep him from giving chase. Then the lion makes one critical misstep.
The ground gives away beneath his five-hundred-pound frame, and
he falls down a steep embankment into a snow-laden pit. It’s the moment of truth as Benaiah approaches the pit. Almost like walking on thin ice, Benaiah measures every step. He inches up to the edge and peers into the pit. Menacing yellow eyes stare back.
Have you ever had one of those moments where you do something
crazy and ask yourself in retrospect: What was I thinking? This had to be
one of those moments for Benaiah. Who in their right mind chases
lions? But Benaiah now has a moment to collect his thoughts, regain
his sanity, and get a grip on reality. And the reality is this: Normal people
don’t chase lions.
You see two sets of tracks leading up to the pit’s edge. One set
of foot prints. One set of paw prints. Benaiah and the lion disappear
into the recesses of the pit. A deafening roar echoes in the cavernous pit. A bloodcurdling battle cry pierces the soul. Then dead silence. after a few agonizing moments of suspense, the shadow of a human form appears as Benaiah climbs out of the pit. The blood from his wounds drips on the freshly fallen snow. Claw marks crisscross his face and spear arm. But Benaiah wins one of the improbable victories recorded in the pages of Scripture.
Right at the outset, let me share one of my core convictions: God is
in the business of strategically positioning us in the right place at the
right time. A sense of destiny is our birthright as followers of Christ.
God is awfully good at getting us where He wants us to go. But here’s
the catch: The right place often seems like the wrong place, and the
right time often seems like the wrong time. Encountering a lion in the wild is typically a bad thing. A really bad thing! Finding yourself in a pit with a lion on a snowy day generally qualifies as a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. That combination of circumstances usually spells one thing: death.
I don't think anyone would have bet on Benaiah winning this fight—. He had to be at least a one-hundred-to-one underdog. And the snowy conditions on game day didn’t help his chances. Scripture doesn’t give us a blow-by-blow description of what happened in that pit. All we know is that when the snow settled, the lion was dead and Benaiah was alive. There was one set of paw prints and two sets of footprints.
Now fast-forward two verses and look at what happens in the
next scene. 2 Samuel 23:23 says: “And David put [Benaiah] in charge of his bodyguard.” I can’t think of too many places I’d rather not be than in a pit with a lion on a snowy day. Can you? Getting stuck in a pit with a lion on a snowy day isn’t on anybody’s wish list. It’s a death wish. But you’ve got to admit something: “I killed a lion in a pit on a snowy day” looks pretty impressive on your résumé if you’re applying for a bodyguard position with the King of Israel! You know what I’m saying? I can picture David flipping through a stack of résumés. “I majored in security at the University of Jerusalem.” Nope. “I did an internship with the Palace Guard.” Nada. “I worked for Brinks Armored Chariots.” Thanks but no thanks. Then David comes to the next résumé in the stack. “I killed a lion
in a pit on a snowy day.” David didn’t even check his references. That
is the kind of person you want in charge of your bodyguard
Most people would have seen the lion as a five-hundred-pound
problem, but not Benaiah. For most people, finding yourself in a pit
with a lion on a snowy day would qualify as bad luck. But can you see
how God turned what could have been considered a bad break into a big
break?
Benaiah lands a job interview with the King of Israel. I’m sure the bodyguard position was the last thing on his mind when he encountered the lion, but Benaiah wasn’t just chasing a lion.
Benaiah was chasing his destiny. Here’s the point: God is in the résumé-building business. He is always using past experiences to prepare us for future opportunities. But those God-given opportunities often come disguised as man-eating lions. And how we react when we encounter those lions will determine our destiny. We can cower in fear and run away from our greatest challenges.
Or we can chase our God-ordained destiny by seizing the God-ordained opportunity. As I look back on my own life, I recognize this simple truth: The greatest opportunities were the scariest lions. Part of me has wanted
to play it safe, but I’ve learned that taking no risks is the greatest risk of all
when I look in the rearview mirror, I realize that the biggest risks were the greatest opportunities. Some of those life-altering decisions caused sleepless nights. The steps of faith were accompanied by acute fear
But those were the moments that I came alive. Those were the moments when God set the stage. Those were the moments that changed the trajectory of my life.
No G u T s, No G l o r y
In his book If Only,1 Dr. Neal Roese makes a fascinating distinction
between two types of regret: regrets of action and regrets of inaction. A
regret of action is “wishing you hadn’t done something.” In theological
terms, it’s called a sin of commission. A regret of inaction is “wishing you
had done something.” In theological terms, it’s a sin of omission. I think the church has fixated on sins of commission for far too long. We have a long list of don’ts.
Think of it as holiness by subtraction. We think holiness is the byproduct of subtracting something from our lives that shouldn’t be there. And holiness certainly involves subtraction. But I think God is more concerned
about sins of omission—those things we could have and should have done. It’s holiness by multiplication. Goodness is not the absence of badness. You can do nothing wrong and still do nothing right.
Those who simply run away from sin are half-Christians. Our calling is much higher than simply running away from what’s wrong. We’re called to chase lions. There is an old saying: “No guts, no glory.” When we don’t have the guts to step out in faith and chase lions, then God is robbed
of the glory that rightfully belongs to Him. Lion chasers are proactive. They know that playing it safe is risky. Lion chasers are always on the lookout for God-ordained opportunities.
Maybe we’ve measured spiritual maturity the wrong way. Maybe following Christ isn’t supposed to be as safe or as civilized as we’ve been
led to believe. Maybe Christ was more dangerous and uncivilized than our Sunday-school flannelgraphs portrayed. Maybe God is raising up a
generation of lion chasers.
Most of us applaud lion chasers from the sidelines. Good for them!
We’re inspired by people who face their fears and chase their dreams.
What we fail to realize is that they are no different from us.
What sets lion chasers apart isn’t the outcome. It’s the courage to
chase God-sized dreams. Lion chasers don’t let their fears or doubts keep them from doing what God has called them to do.
I have a simple definition of success: Do the best you can with what
you have where you are. In essence, success is making the most of every
opportunity. Spiritual maturity is seeing and seizing God-ordained opportunities. Think of every opportunity as God’s gift to you. What you do with those opportunities is your gift to God.
I’m absolutely convinced that our greatest regrets in life will be missed opportunities. When you cross paths with the lion, are you going to run away? Benaiah went on to have a brilliant military career. In fact, he climbed all the way up the chain of command to become commander in chief of Israel’s army. But it all started with what many would consider being in the wrong place at the wrong time. His genealogy of success can be traced all the way back to a life-or-death encounter with a man-eating lion. It was fight or flight. Benaiah was faced with a choice that would determine his destiny: run away or give chase. Not much has changed in the past three thousand years.
I seriously doubt that anybody will ever find themselves in a pit with a lion on a snowy day. None of us lie awake at night worrying about what we would do in a lion encounter. In a strictly literal sense, can you imagine a more irrelevant topic? But in a figurative sense, I can’t imagine anything more useful.
I don’t pretend to know the unique circumstances of your life, but I’m guessing you have encountered some lions, fallen into some pits, and weathered a few snowy days. Maybe it’s a God-sized dream that scares the living daylights out of you. Maybe a bad habit or a bad decision finds you at the bottom of a pit. Or maybe a cloud of self-doubt casts a dark shadow on your future.
Unlearning fears and embracing uncertainty requires a counterintuitive approach to life. But like Benaiah, the courage to swim against the current will help you get where God wants you to go. Almost like innate athletic ability or musical prowess, practice makes perfect. The more risks you take, the easier it becomes. Seizing opportunities becomes second nature.
Defying odds and looking foolish will become default settings.
G.K. Cheston wrote how much happier you would be, how much more of you there would be if the hammer of a higher god could smash your small cosmos.
I’m not sure what kind of line Jerusalem oddsmakers would have given the three incidents recorded in 2 Samuel 23, but I do know this: Benaiah wasn’t the odds-on favorite. Benaiah had to be a two-to-one underdog when he fought two of Moab’s mightiest warriors. Benaiah was double-teamed. I’m guessing the Egyptian giant was at least a ten-to-one favorite. For starters, Benaiah had a club and the Egyptian had a spear the size of a weaver’s rod. If I’m placing bets on a club or a spear, I put my money on the sharp, pointy spear every time! But the weapon advantage is only part of the disparity. According to Scripture, the Egyptian was seven and a half feet tall. In the boxing world, A fighter with a longer reach has a distinct advantage over a shorter boxer. Given his height, I’m guessing the Egyptian had an eighteen- to twenty-four-inch reach advantage. Add the weapon advantage and size advantage together and you’ve got a mismatch the size of David versus Goliath. How did he even get close enough to grab it? And then there is the epic encounter with a lion in a pit on a snowy day. Scripture is silent on whether or not Benaiah even had a weapon. But even if he did, it wasn’t a hunting rifle. And once again, Benaiah had a significant physical disadvantage. A fully grown male lion weighs hundreds of pounds more, runs many miles per hour faster, and leaps much farther than any man. Its jaws are powerful enough to bite through skull bones, and its canine teeth are used to rip through animal hides. And considering the fact that lions hunt everything from wildebeests to giraffes, Benaiah is small prey.
But along with the physical disadvantages, you’ve got to factor in topographical and meteorological factors. I would definitely give the lion home-field advantage. A pit is a lion’s domain. A lion’s eyesight is five times better than a human with twenty-twenty vision, giving the lion a significant advantage in a poorly lit pit. And a sure-footed lion with catlike reflexes certainly gains the upper paw in snowy, slippery conditions. Add it all together and Benaiah had to be a hundred-to-one long shot.
But Benaiah did what lion chasers do. He defied the odds. He didn’t focus on his disadvantages. He didn’t make excuses. He didn’t try to avoid situations where the odds were against him. Lion chasers know God is bigger and more powerful than any problem they face in this world. They thrive in the toughest circumstances because they know that impossible odds set the stage for amazing miracles. That is how God reveals his glory—and how He blesses you in ways you never could have imagined.
IMPOSSIBLE ODDS There is a pattern that I see repeated throughout Scripture: Sometimes God won’t intervene until something is humanly impossible. And He usually does it just in the nick of time. I think that pattern reveals one dimension of God’s personality: God loves impossible odds. And I can relate to that. One of the most exhilarating things in the world is doing something that no one thinks you can do.
Maybe God allows the odds to be stacked against us so He can reveal more of His glory. I think that explains the counterintuitive military strategy in Judges 6. Gideon’s army of thirty-two thousand men is vastly outnumbered by the Midianites. They are already underdogs when the Lord gives a command: “You have too many men for me to deliver Midian into their hands.” What? If I’m Gideon, I’m thinking God misspoke. You said “too many,” but I think you really meant to say “too few.” But God tells Gideon to discharge anyone who is afraid, and Gideon loses two-thirds of his army. Now he’s down to ten thousand men. Then the Lord says it again: “There are still too many men.” Gideon wants God to call for a draft, but God devises a test to get rid of even more foot soldiers.
Gideon’s men goes to get a drink of water, and God tells him to dismiss the men who drink like a dog. That leaves Gideon with an “army” of three hundred men. But it gets even better! God tells Gideon to attack the Midianites with trumpets and jars. You’ve got to be kidding me! What kind of battle plan is that? And here’s the kicker: Israel wins! So why does God do it that way? “You have too many warriors with you. If I let all of you fight the Midianites, the Israelites will boast to me that they saved themselves by their own strength.”
If Gideon had attacked with thirty-two thousand men and won, I’m pretty sure the Israelites would have thanked God for lending them a hand, and God would have gotten partial credit. And when three hundred men defeat a vast army with trumpets and jars, God gets all the glory. Why? Because a victory like that defies all odds. I know this for sure: Benaiah knew who to praise after defeating the Moabites. He gave God all the props after defeating the Egyptian giant. And he must have had revival in that snowy pit after killing the lion. Too often our prayers revolve around asking God to reduce the odds in our lives.
But maybe God wants to stack the odds against us so we can experience a miracle of divine proportions. Maybe faith is trusting God no matter how impossible the odds are. Maybe our impossible situations are opportunities to experience a new dimension of God’s glory.
The creation story is a microcosm of what God wants to do in your life. He hovers over the chaotic situations ready to create order and beauty. He wants to fill the void.
Maybe we underestimate our freedom in Christ. Maybe it’s not just freedom from sin. Maybe it is the freedom to do the extradimensional. Faith gives us the dimensional freedom to overcome our human limitations by exiting space-time via prayer. According to A.W.Tozer, the most important thing about you is what comes to mind when you think about God. . . . the most significant fact about any man is not what he at a given time may say or do, but what he in his deep heart conceives God to be like. . . . Were we able to extract from any man a complete answer to the question, “What comes to your mind when you think about God
How you think about God will determine who you become. You aren’t just the byproduct of “nature” and “nurture.” You are a byproduct of your God-picture. And that internal picture of God determines how you see everything else. Most of our problems are not circumstantial. Most of our problems are perceptual. Our biggest problems can be traced back to an inadequate understanding of who God is. Our problems seem really big because our God seems really small. In fact, we reduce God to the size of our biggest problem. Tozer said a “low view of God . . . is the cause of a hundred lesser evils.”
But a person with a high view of God “is relieved of ten thousand temporal problems.” A low view of God and a high view of God are the difference between scaredy-cats and lion chasers. Scaredy-cats are filled with fear because their God is so small. Lion chasers know that their best thought about God on their best day falls infinitely short of how great God really is. “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are my ways your ways,” declares the LORD. “As the heavens are higher than the earth so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
Sunlight is only eight minutes old. But light from the furthest galaxy takes 12.3 billion years to get here. That distance is virtually incomprehensible! And God says that is about the distance between His thoughts and our thoughts. Your best thought about God on your best day falls 12.3 billion light-years short of how great and how good God really is. We underestimate God’s goodness and greatness by at least 12.3 billion light-years. You know what the greatest tragedy in life is? It is someone whose god gets smaller and smaller with each passing day.
Maybe it’s time to stop putting God in a box the size of your cerebral cortex. Maybe it’s time to stop creating God in your image and let Him create you in His. The more we grow, the bigger God should get. And the bigger God gets, the smaller our lions will become.
Long before God laid earth’s foundations, he had us in mind. Long, long ago he decided to adopt us into his family. He thought of everything, provided for everything we could possibly need. Translation: God planned for every contingency you might ever encounter, before the beginning of time. That is one of the most mind-boggling truths in Scripture.
2Ti_1:7 For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, (dunamis) and of love, and of a sound mind. Discipline self control
