Lions and  Tigers and Bears (and Giants), Oh My!

I have to think it was a royal pain for David to shepherd sheep in lion and bear country. Not only did these predators pose a constant threat to his sheep, they posed a constant threat to David’s very life. Their presence meant that watching over the sheep was a matter of life and death. No half-asleep sidelong glances while sipping piña coladas and catching up on the Jerusalem Post sports page. David had to be fixated on a threat that he dreaded ever materializing. Who wants to wage single combat in the dead (pun intended) of night with lions and bears, oh my (sorry, no tigers in Israel), especially when they’re armed with powerful agility and razor claws and your only weapon is a string and a rock? Manifestly an undesirable situation.

Yet, it came to David, again and again, with unmitigated constancy and increasing ferocity. “Your servant has been keeping his father’s sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it” (1 Sam. 17:34–35). When I was sixteen, I liked to play basketball and watch movies. But David’s adolescence was spent matching brawn and wits with wild animals that wanted to kill him and eat his sheep. I had a far tamer time of it for sure, but just as certain is that the untamed tests of David’s youth fitted him far more than me for extraordinary courage that would show up on a distant day in a deep valley against a fearsome giant.

Economist Nassim Taleb “coined the phrase ‘anti-fragile’ to encapsulate a quality of resilience and security that can be built into economic systems so they can withstand unforeseeable disruptive events.” The way to brave lies through times of testing and trials that make us “anti-fragile.” David’s courage against Goliath was a product of his testing by the lion and the bear. “Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God. The LORD who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine” (1 Sam. 17:36–37).

God had tested David with lions and bears, not to harm him physically or incapacitate him spiritually, but to strengthen his faith and fortify his confidence. Only shepherds who’ve killed lions and bears even think of stepping into the ring with giants. Each new victory supplemented David’s confidence-quotient to such a degree that when the ultimate test menaced, David’s faith answered. In this way God shaped a David faith for a Goliath world. And in this way God will shape our faith as well. It’s just how He does it. As James writes, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything” (James 1:2–4). Testing, then, is an essential experience on our way to brave because God uses it to mature and complete our faith by broadening, deepening, and focusing our faith.

Testing Broadens Faith 

One of my heroes growing up was the late great Charles Schultz’s cartoon creation Charlie Brown. For Charlie Brown, nothing in life ever went just right. He couldn’t get the Little Red-Haired Girl’s attention. Lucy always pulled the football away when he tried to kick it. His own dog Snoopy always outsmarted him. And his ball team never won (ever). In one of my favorite strips, even the simple pleasure of flying a kite eluded Charlie Brown when he got his caught in a tree. So when he hears his friend Peppermint Patty say, “I need to talk to someone who knows what it’s like to feel like a fool … someone who knows what it’s like to be humiliated … someone who’s been disgraced, beaten and degraded … someone who’s been there,” Charlie Brown just throws up his arms as if to say, “I’m your man.” I’ve been your man too, Peppermint Patty.

My natural response when trials come my way is the same as a guy who was waiting at a crowded New York subway stop at the front of the line. The train stopped, and the doors opened to reveal a very pale-looking man standing there. This man had been fighting motion sickness, but just as the door opened he lost the battle. He upchucked all over the guy in line, after which the doors closed and the train pulled out. The guy turned to the crowd, threw his hands in the air and cried, “Why me?!” That is the operative question in every human heart when trials come. James answers that question concisely. “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance” (James 1:2–3).

But what happens when the joy and contentment that James speaks about doesn’t happen immediately in our trials? Sometimes the angst and lament we feel as we cry out “Why me?!” lingers for a while. Sometimes that pain sticks around, despite our knowledge that God is in control and trials are for a purpose. Oftentimes the weight of heartache and sorrow over a trial far outweigh the knowledge that when my faith is tested I’m learning perseverance. It’s okay to cry “Why me?!” Jesus identifies with us in our pain and trials. We should grieve the pain of this fallen world, but we can also embrace God’s promises in faith and trust in His sovereignty. It’s not either/or, but it is both/and.

Something that I have found helpful in painful times is to recognize that it’s not just you and me that have our faith tested. It’s everyone. Trials are inevitable for all: “whenever [not if] you face trials of many kinds.” M. Scott Peck acknowledges that fact in the first line of his old bestseller The Road Less Travelled: “Life is difficult.” Yes, life is difficult, but James assures us that for us as believers, it’s difficult for a purpose. We may not feel the truth of that statement in the moment, but God sends trials to broaden our faith in Him, to deepen our dependence on Him, to remind us that He is God.

Following the Winter Olympic Games a few years ago, Ameritrade aired an ad that I still love. It began by showing the US Olympic snowboarder Louie Vito standing hand-on-heart on the gold medal podium while the American National Anthem played. Then the ad takes us backwards on the timeline of Vito’s life. We see a clip of him as a young man performing advanced tricks (and falling hard) with the assistance of a long metal railing. The next clip shows the 2002 Louie as a teenager “catching air” on the slopes (and wiping out often). In other clips he’s a child practicing flips on a trampoline, unwrapping a snowboard on Christmas morning, and blowing out two candles on his birthday cake. The last scene shows Vito, who looks barely old enough to stand, snowboarding down a sloping front yard and then getting scooped up by an adult as these words appear on the screen: “Behind every big moment, there are lots of small ones.” That’s the encouragement that James offers to us on the way to brave. Lots of small moments (“trials of many kinds”) fit us out to succeed in the big moments when a mature and complete faith is so essential for success.

That’s the very reason the apostle Peter has such a glowing attitude toward trials. “In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed” (1 Peter 1:6–7). Peter probably wrote these words from Rome shortly before he was put to death under the brutal persecution of Emperor Nero in the mid-60s AD. A reign of terror had begun in the capital city when Christians were falsely blamed by him for a major fire in Rome. The brutality that followed was ruthless. It is to such horrors that Peter refers as suffering grief “in all kinds of trials … so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.” He holds that God does not allow his people to go through “all kinds of trials” (literally, “multicolored”) so that their faith fails, but rather so that their faith is refined. Hardships do not divert them from Christ; trials drive them to Christ so that their faith becomes broader and stronger and more beautiful for His glory.

A young man wanted to be a peach grower and invested everything he had in an orchard. Finally it blossomed, but a frost came and killed his peach crop. He told his pastor, “I’m done with God. Do you think I want to worship a God who cares for me so little that He will let a frost kill all of my peaches?” The old minister was silent for a few moments, then kindly said, “God loves you more than your peaches. He knows that while peaches do better without frost, it is impossible to grow the best men without frost. His object is to grow men, not peaches.”

Here’s what a Christian knows that makes him have a peculiar response to trials: “God isn’t at work producing the circumstances you want. God is at work in bad circumstances to produce the you He wants.” That’s good with me because the me my Living Savior wants is way better than any me I could ever hope to be. As the great George Whitefield wrote, “I have put my soul, as a blank, into the hands of Jesus Christ my Redeemer, and desired him to write upon it what he pleases. I know it will be his own image.”

In 1982, two Russian cosmonauts touched down after 211 days in the space station Salyut 7. At zero gravity, their muscles had atrophied due to complete lack of resistance. For a week they were unable to walk, and “after 30 days, they were still undergoing therapy for atrophied muscles and weakened hearts…. To counteract this, the Soviets…. invented the ‘penguin suit,’ a running suit laced with elastic bands” that “resisted every move the cosmonauts made, forcing them to exert extra strength.” In 1987, another “Soviet cosmonaut returned to the earth after 326 days in orbit,” but unlike those before him, this guy was in top shape the moment he got home. The penguin suit had helped the cosmonaut stay strong by adding resistance to his movements. Sounds like beneficial trials to me!

So my friends, get ready for trials on the way to brave. And not just one. A steady stream. A constant exercise. A cascade of lions and tigers and bears and giants (oh my!) is God’s gift (albeit sometimes you might rather reject the gift because it causes too much pain) to broaden your faith from a narrow band of coverage to complete coverage of what may come. Trials mature your faith so that it can courageously interact with anything this world can throw at you! Think of it this way: God strengthens our character qualities by resisting them with their opposites. We learn true peace in the midst of chaos. We learn to love by being around unlovely people. We learn true joy in the midst of tragedy, patience in the midst of waiting, and kindness in the face of cruelty. As Ben Jonson says: “He knows not his own strength that hath not met adversity. Heaven prepares good men with crosses.” So my friends, gladly don the penguin suit! It will keep you strong. Gladly welcome trials! They will broaden and complete your faith.