One morning I found myself singing one of my favorite new songs, Famous For (Tauren Wells). I got to a line in the song that absolutely stopped me in my tracks. I let the lyrics settle into my heart and contemplated what the Lord might be trying to tell me about them. Here’s the section of the song I was singing at the time:
Make way through the waters
Walk me through the fire
Do what You are famous for
What You are famous for
Shut the mouths of lions
Bring dry bones to life and
Do what You are famous for
What You are famous for
The part that stopped me cold was the line “shut the mouths of lions.” I was reminded that God literally closed the mouths of the lions that tried to consume Daniel when he was thrown into the lion’s den.
All around us, lions are roaring. The enemy is skilled in the art of distraction, isn’t he? If he can’t stop us completely, he’ll just distract us with a loud, fake roar, intended to throw us off-course and make us lose our focus. He’s the king of chaos, and knows just what to do to propel believers into confusion and fear.
The Bible calls him “the enemy of our souls who comes to steal, kill, and destroy” and that’s a more-than-adequate description! He is the “roaring lion” whose voice is trying to steal our joy, our peace, and our hope and we need to remain aware of his tactics so that we can adequately tune him out.
There’s another lion, one we read about in Revelation 5: “One of the elders said to me, “Stop weeping; behold, the Lion that is from the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has overcome so as to open the book and its seven seals.”
Jesus is the lion of the tribe of Judah, and His mouth is wide open, too. Only, He’s not speaking words of chaos and confusion. He’s saying, “Come to me, all of you who are weary, and I will give you rest.”
To get a full description of this lion, we need look no further than the very same verse that describes our enemy, John 10:10: “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”
What a contrast! One lion brings chaos, death, hopelessness. The other brings life…and that to the full! Abundant life for those who follow the lion of the tribe of Judah, death for the ones who follow the thief of our souls. And yet, we so often blindly follow after the roar of the wrong lion. We let it rob us of our peace, and interrupt our thoughts.
He’s not worth it. Don’t give him a moment’s thought. “Shut the mouths of lions” is now more than just a lyric in a song to me. It’s my admonition as the enemy of my soul stares me down and tries to distract me from all I’ve been called to do. But he’s messing with the wrong girl here, and I’ve already told him so!
