In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day

I just finished reading a book called "In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day", written by Mark Batterson. Mark is the lead pastor at National Community Church in Washington DC, which meets in movie theaters at metro stops.

The book was one of the most inspiring books I've read in a long time, so I wanted to share some of the points that I found the most interesting.

The premise of the book comes from an obscure story in II Samuel about a warrior named Benaiah, who chases a lion into a pit and kills it. Mark points out that the most amazing thing about the story is not just that he killed a lion, but that he chased it. Most people don't chase lions. They run the other way. But Benaiah chased the lion into a pit (in snowy conditions, which would have made for an even bigger advantage for the lion), and he killed it, against all odds.

After killing it, Benaiah gets the job as King David's bodyguard and the commander of his army.
Mark makes the point that we can look at Benaiah's story as a metaphor for the Christian life. Benaiah took a huge risk by chasing that lion, but he leveraged it into a position that made him the second-most powerful man in the country. God calls us all to take some pretty big risks in life. If we don't take Him up on them and we just play it safe, we're limiting God's power to take us further in life. But if we trust in God and take those risks, he can take us further than we ever thought possible.

I'd like to share some quotes from the book that I found really interesting:

"I think the church has fixated on the 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 subracting 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."

"Too often our prayers revolve around asking God to reduce the odds in our lives. We want everything in our favor. 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 more we grow, the bigger God should get. And the bigger God gets, the smaller our lions (problems) will become."

"In his Letters to Malcolm, C.S. Lewis said 'If God had granted all the silly prayers I've made in my life, where would I be now?' Lewis went so far as to say that someday we'll be more grateful for our prayers that didn't get answered than the ones that did. The reason for this is simple: Many of our prayers are misguided. We pray for comfort instead of character. We pray for an easy way out instead of the strength to make it through. We pray for no pain, when the result would be no gain. We pray that God will keep us out of pits and away from lions. But if God answered our prayer, it would rob us of our greatest opportunities. Many of our prayers would short-circuit God's plans and purposes for our lives if He answered them. Maybe we should stop asking God to get us out of difficult circumstances and start asking Him what He wants us to get out of those difficult circumstances."

"We want control, but the decision to follow Christ is a relinquishment of control. Following Christ is letting Jesus take the wheel...But faith involves a loss of control. And with the loss of control comes uncertainty...And faith is the willingness and readiness to embrace those uncertainties."

"Everyone's path is littered with the debris of dysfunction and disappointment. We've all been misjudged or misled. And we will be many more times before our lives are over. But God is in the business of using those experiences to prepare us for future opportunities."

"As I look back over my life, the greatest breakthroughs have happened while I've been in prayer mode. Prayer is an opportunity incubator. When I'm not in prayer mode, I have good ideas. But when I'm in prayer mode I have God ideas. And I'd rather have one God idea than a thousand good ideas."

"In the long run, opportunity costs are always more damaging that actual costs. Far too many people think of righteousness in terms of actual costs instead of opportunity costs. We mistakenly think of righteousness as doing nothing wrong when, in fact, righteousness is doing something right. Righteousness isn't just running away from sin. Righteousness is chasing lions."


Mark Batterson runs a great website/blog called Evotional.com. You can also find podcasts of his sermons here:
http://theaterchurch.com/media/podcast