IN A PIT WITH A LION ON A SNOWY DAY

When I was at the Innovate Conference at Granger Community Church in Indiana, I was looking at the available books for purchase. When a young lady saw me looking at this particular one, she said: “Oh, that book is great. My husband and I were motivated to take the plunge into missions after we read that book.” I thought that was a pretty good endorsement, and since I thought the title was cool, I bought it. The book is entitled: In A Pit With A Lion On A Snowy Day: How to survive and thrive when opportunity roars by Mark Batterson.

The title is based on the story in II Samuel 23:20,21 – “There was also Benaiah son of Jehoiada, a valiant warrior from Kabzeel. He did many heroic deeds, which included killing two of Moab’s mightiest warriors. Another time he chased a lion down into a pit. Then, despite the snow and slippery ground, he caught the lion and killed it. Another time, armed only with a club, he killed a great Egyptian warrior who was armed with a spear. Benaiah wrenched the spear from the Egyptians’ hand and killed him with it.”

I thought I would just give you some of my favorite quotes from the book:
· “God is in the resume-building business. He is alwys using past experiences to prepare us for future opportunities. But those God-given opportunities often come disguised as man-eating lions. And how we react when we encounter those lions will determine our destiny. We can cower in fear and run away from our greatest challenges. Or we can chase our God-ordained destiny by seizing the God-ordained opportunity.”
· "God loves impossible odds…maybe God allows the odds to be stacked against us so He can reveal more of His glory.”
· “How you think about God will determine who you become…Our problems seem really big because our God seems really small. In fact, we reduce God to the size of our biggest problem.”
· “Don’t let mental lions keep you from experiencing everything God has to offer. The greatest breakthroughs in your life will happen when you push through the fear.”
· “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.”

This book only took me one day to read, but it was a great encouragement and challenge to me for the future. I highly recommend you pick this book up somewhere and read it. It is an easy read but a good reminder of some things that are easy for us to forget – about ourselves and God.