How long is your To Do list? What important things are on that list? Does your list include anything absurd? How about this one:

  • Praise God
  • Fight enemy
  • Chase lion down into a pit on a snowy day
  • Kill lion
  • Pick up milk and bread
  • Meet with staff
  • Etc.

Wait! What’s that about chasing a lion down into a pit…on a snowy day…and killing it? That’s absurd. Yet God’s Spirit included that bit of information about a man named Benaiah, not once, but twice in Scripture. (2 Samuel 23:20, 1 Chronicles 11:22) What is all that about? If you read on, you learn that God was preparing Benaiah for other assignments to come with King David.

Pastor and author Mark Batterson has written a book based on the incident mentioned, and he draws some interesting insight from that passage. Reading the book, In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day, you may find you agree with one who wrote this about Batterson’s book:

“You will look back longingly on risks not taken, opportunities not seized, and dreams not pursued. Stop running away from what scares you most and start chasing the God-ordained opportunities that cross your path.”

What does God want to do through you that requires something that may scare you? If we are honest, we want to be successful in ministry and in life. But the definition of success depends on who you are and whose you are. Mark Batterson defines it this way:

“Do the best you can with what you have where you are.

In essence, success is making the most of every opportunity.”

Even if that opportunity ends up being in a pit on a snowy day with a lion? Maybe especially if it ends up with you being in a pit on a snowy day with a lion.

Batterson sums up some of his ideas with these thoughts for those he calls “lion chasers:”

  • God is in the business of strategically positioning us in the right place at the right time. But the right place often seems like the wrong place, and the right time often seems like the wrong time.
  • Goodness is not the absence of badness. You can do nothing wrong and still do nothing right. Our calling is much higher than simply running away from what’s wrong. We’re called to chase lions—to look for opportunities in our problems and obstacles, and take risks to reach for God’s best.
  • 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.
  • Spiritual maturity is seeing and seizing God-ordained opportunities.

OK…so you think this is crazy talk. God would never put you in that kind of a situation. First of all, I would probably run from the lion…or worse, I would stay in the pit with the lion and die. But then there is that verse we probably all know:

For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength.

Philippians 4:13 NLT

If it is God’s assignment, His challenge, His adventure for you, the Lord will supply all you need to accomplish His will in your life.

So, what is your pit? Where is your lion? What challenge has God placed before you? And what is the Lord preparing you for through your snowy pit experience?

God’s best…