Chase the Lion: The Guts of Leadership

Benaiah chased a lion down into a pit. Then, despite the snow and slippery ground, he caught the lion and killed it. (2 Samuel 23:20)

Scripture doesn't tell us what Benaiah was doing or where he was going when he encountered this lion. And we don't know his frame of mind. But Scripture does reveal his gut reaction. And it was gutsy. It ranks as one of the most courageous and most improbable reactions recorded in Scripture. When the image of a man-eating beast travels through the optical nerve and registers in the visual cortex, the brain has one over-arching message: run away as fast and as far as you can.

Normal people run away. But not lion chasers! Lion chasers are a different breed. They don't see five-hundred pound problems. When opportunity roars, they grab life by the mane!

Let me state the obvious: Benaiah was not the odds-on-favorite. Not only do fully-grown lions weigh up to 500 pounds and run 35 mph, their vision is five times better than a human with 20/20 vision. This lion had a huge advantage in a dimly lit pit. Add the topographical and meteorological factors, and I guarantee that a sure-footed lion with cat-like reflexes gains the upper paw in snowy, slippery conditions.

Now zoom out.

Doesn't it seem like Benaiah is choosing his battles poorly? It's too risky. It's too unpredictable. It's too dangerous. But Scripture doesn't say that Benaiah was a prudent warrior. It says he was a valiant warrior.

Lion chasers don't try to avoid situations where the odds are against them. Lion chasers know that impossible odds set the stage for amazing miracles! Those are the experiences that make life worth living. Those are the experiences worth telling stories about.

For most of us, finding ourselves in a pit with a lion on a snowy day is the last place we'd want to be. But you've got to admit something: I killed a lion in a pit on a snowy day looks awfully impressive on your resume if you're applying for a bodyguard position with the King of Israel!

Not only does Benaiah land a job as David's chief bodyguard. He climbs all the way up the military chain-of-command to become Commander-in-Chief of Israel's army. Benaiah was the second most powerful person in the kingdom of Israel. But his genealogy of success can be traced all the way back to a life-and-death encounter with a man-eating lion. It was fight or flight. And Benaiah had the guts to chase the lion.

The church needs more leaders with the spirit of Benaiah.

Gutsy
I'm not sure exactly how to say this. And it probably won't come across as very academic. But one of the most under-appreciated dimensions of great leadership is guts. Great leaders are gutsy! It takes different shapes in different arenas. But gutsy leaders dare to be different. They challenge the status quo. They refuse to play it safe.

And no one was more gutsy than Jesus! He wasn't afraid of offending Pharisees; touching lepers; washing feet; defending prostitutes; or befriending tax collectors.

In the words of Dorothy Sayers:
"To do them justice, the people who crucified Jesus did not do so because he was a bore. Quite the contrary; he was too dynamic to be safe. It has been left for later generations to muffle up that shattering personality and surround him with an atmosphere of tedium. We have declawed the lion of Judah and made him a housecat for pale priests and pious old ladies."

I used to have issue with the episode recorded in John 2 where Jesus threw a Temple tantrum. It didn't fit my Sunday School caricature of Jesus. But I've come to appreciate that side of Jesus. He was the lamb of God, but He was also the Lion of the tribe of Judah. It took guts to turn the Temple upside-down and inside-out.

The church needs more gutsy leaders who follow suit.

Play Offense
From the time of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing, and forceful men lay hold of it. (Matthew 11:12)

There is nothing remotely passive about following Christ. Faithfulness has nothing to do with maintaining the status quo or holding the fort. It has everything to do with competing for the Kingdom and storming the gates of Hell.

Does it bother anyone else that the church is more known for what we're against than what we're for? The church needs to stop playing defense and start playing offense!

A few years ago, I started coaching my son's basketball team. And at the beginning of our first season, most of the kids didn't know how to play the game. They had zero basketball instincts. In fact, the beginning of games was pure chaos. Despite repeated attempts to point them in the right direction, most of the kids didn't know which basket to defend and which one to shoot at. Occasionally, our kids would play defense on the offensive side and offense on the defensive side. Sometimes our kids were totally oblivious to the fact that we had the ball, so I would yell at the top of my lungs: You're on offense! You're on offense!

I wonder if that is what Jesus is yelling to His church: You're on offense! You're on offense!

Jesus commissioned the church to play offense in Matthew 16:18:
I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail.

The gates of hell are defensive. The church is called to play offense!

Leadership Manifesto
One of the dangers we face in leadership is this: at some point in our leadership journey we stop playing offense and start playing defense. We stop doing ministry out of imagination and start doing ministry out of memory. We stop creating the future and start repeating the past. We stop chasing lions and start running away from them.

So here's a reminder: The greatest regret at the end of your life will be the lions you didn't chase!

Maybe it's time to pursue your primal calling? Maybe it's time to get back on offense? Maybe it's time to resurrect the God-ordained dreams that have died?

What lion is God calling you to chase?

Make this your manifesto:
Quit living as if the purpose of life is to arrive safely at death. Set God-sized goals. Pursue God-ordained passions. Go after a dream that is destined to fail without divine intervention. Stop pointing out problems and become part of the solution. Stop criticizing and start creating. Stop playing it safe and start taking risks. Expand your horizons. Accumulate experiences. Consider the lilacs. Find every excuse you can to celebrate everything you can. Don't let what's wrong with you keep you from worshipping what's right with God. Burn sinful bridges. Laugh at yourself. Keep making mistakes. Worry less about what people think and more about what God thinks. Don't try to be who you're not. Be yourself. Quit holding out. Quit holding back. Quit running away. And remember: if God is for us who can be against us?

Chase the lion!