Uncage the lion

I have been out talking to people in the church lately. That means that they understand Christianity from a standard, contemporary mindset. One guy I was talking to saw a relationship with God as praying lots, going to church, tithing, and reading his Bible. I asked him if there might be a way to be more creative, but it was obvious that he could only describe a relationship with God as he understood it.

If I go to a zoo, I might see a lion. The lion isn't really much of a lion - he doesn't hunt because his food is thrown in front of him. He might mate when the zookeeper puts a female in the cage with him. But whatever understanding you might get about what a lion is and does is pretty small if you only experience the lion in the zoo. It really isn't a very good or accurate picture of a lion.

Imagine the lion got out, and was in your back yard. Suddenly the definition of a lion becomes very different. You run for your life, you get a gun, you are literally in danger for your very existence. That's a real lion. That is what a lion is supposed to be - running wild (okay, lets make it Africa and not your back yard). That lion is a whole different animal when it is in its natural habitat doing what it was created to do. Seeing it in a zoo is only to see the shell of what a lion looks like - its appearance only - with no substance.

That's what my friend saw - God behind bars, God packaged into easy to follow instructions. And he wouldn't hear of letting God out of that box.

If He really is good, why are we so afraid of Him? If we could let ourselves learn to experience God without all the props, how much more real might He become?

I love the C.S. Lewis quote from one of the books in the Narnia Chronicles, where someone asks if Aslan the lion (a figure of Jesus) is a safe lion. The person answering says something like "No, he isn't safe, but he is good!"