The Lions’ Den

So today we returned to a familiar tale from our Sunday school days – of a man who was thrown into the lions’ den for his defiance of the law, but by a miracle of God, emerged alive and in one piece.

I noted with bemusement at how the boys run things. They adopt a straight down the line, mechanical, step1-to-step2 type methodology. Everything is logical, calculated, sterilized even. The events must be chronologically laid out. The narrative must be coherent. The characters and their motivations have to make some sort of sense. It is a critical operation of scouring through the text verse-by-verse, picking apart the inconsistencies and taking note of the nuances, analysing and breaking down to minute packages of digestible detail.

On a side note, I think we girls have much to learn from that. Perhaps this led on from lunch conversation, where we were contesting the appeal of American soaps to the lay-woman. Often, they feature the emotionally-charged female protagonist with her posse of equally neurotic gal-pals. Together, as they go about painting the town (Wisteria Lane, Tree Hill, Seattle Grace, Upper East Side Manhattan, Beverly Hills, whatever) red, they inadvertently sometimes promulgate messages. The promise that ‘everything that you ever wanted’ (McDreamy, for instance) can be yours even though you’re a little bit damaged. It’s okay to cry a little, to be crazy for a bit, to be demanding for just a little more. And we sometimes celebrate all that in the name of self-respect, or independence (whatever tagword they use these days), because we’re all beautiful and princesses and yada yada.

I sometimes, just call it being spoilt.

On the flipside, there is then the glaring lack of emphasis on contemporary examples of male bonding or kinship. The notion of brothers, who band together around beer and peanut shells strewn all over the floor. No matter the occasional derogatory talk that objectifies females, or the distasteful random toilet joke, they have each others’ back, and sometimes (maybe, hopefully) drum some sense into each other and help their fellas learn a lesson or two. This has become increasingly rare, in my opinion, and all the more precious for it.

Anyway, I’m going off tangent, and that is a conversation for another day.

So, the discussion in this room over deeply-fried food, amongst this band of brothers, was somewhat tiresome for me. Faced with cold, hard, sterile facts, I found myself fidgeting in frustration at some points, mentally asking in exasperation, “What is the point of nit-picking over whether Daniel was the third highest ruler or the highest ruler in the kingdom?” But I soon grew to realise that debate over the most seemingly insignificant of detail was but one of the leading points, a foretaste if you will, yielding insight into much larger questions.

And so, we do it the boys’ way for once, which is also how we find ourselves painting quite the different portrait:

Daniel isn’t young or handsome. He is old, probably in his eighties, coming out of semi-retirement, weary from being forgotten generation after generation, and yet, still proving to be a formidable force of resilience to be reckoned with. Our Daniel isn’t perched on a rock, eyes raised towards heaven and hands positioned in prayer, bathed in pale moonlight. He is probably cowering in a corner, rocking back and forth to calm himself, all the while sweating, shuddering, praying profusely that hope against hope, that lions won’t be hungry. And they, these fearsome kings of the beasts, aren’t lying by his feet like obedient dogs sitting by their master, docile and drowsy. They are probably licking their lips and gnashing their teeth, on the prowl, taking prideful powerful strides around Daniel like sharks circling their kill.

Only, the difference is that their mouths are sealed shut.

It is true how we always pray for escape. We ask for a way out. We call on God for rescue. We desperately plead for pardon. We pray, more often than not, for the pain and suffering to be taken away from us. Oh, would You spare us this ordeal? Oh would You reach in with Your mighty hand and smite our enemies, and lift us up from this mess we’ve created?

But perhaps we shut out the real message that is really, quite unpleasant to the ears, that -

• the best lessons are learnt through the harshest, and cruelest of ordeals.
• you need to fall down, before you can learn how to pick yourself up.
• death comes before resurrection, the rise again.

And that is why people are frustrated with Christianity. That is why we think that our prayers go ‘unheard’. We are disillusioned with notions of miraculous windfalls and taken in by grand prosperity gospels. The thing is, the system won’t go away, the suffering doesn’t stop. But God can reach in with His mighty hand and manipulate the machinery, tweak the screws and bolts, to make things go His way, to make the system, serve Him. He can teach you to brave anything, but only by the process of breaking your heart and toughening your skin.

It reminds me of all my close shaves with failure. The times when I’ve stared it in the face, and snubbed my nose at it; When a Get-Out-of-Jail-Free card was delivered into my hands, and I got away, scot-free. I used to call it luck, a fluke-shot, only to realize that really, it was God’s grace, a blessing, favour. However today, I find myself standing at a point again where the reality of failure is very imminent before me. And although, that I perhaps should count myself fortunate, to have been spared from it time and time again, but when and if it does come – this time – to knock, and then break and enter, I will have to learn to let it ransack all that I hold dear, plunder and pillage.

And with what is left, with all these broken pieces, still find wholeness and restoration.

But wait,
I’m also thinking about the dens I audaciously walk into, the lions I willingly throw myself at.

Was Daniel challenging God when upon hearing the decree being made, threw open his windows and made a blatant show of his devotion?

Am I making a farce of God’s grace by refusing to fly from this? And so this is where I evaluate my motivations for still being here. But I want to be here. I so do. I’m not really to leave yet. Don’t take me out of this situation. I would really, do anything for you. Those were but some of the rationalizations that buzzed through my head. Perhaps, there is a reason why I’m still here. Perhaps this pain is necessary.

And so, today’s lesson seemed like my brand of self-soothe medication. A justification for this insanity. But now I’ve got to ask myself some vital questions -

Does it make me noble? Am I truly selfless? Have I crossed the fine line between helping someone and having a Messiah complex?

OR

Does the implicit expectation of something, anything in return (consciously, or not) negate sacrifice? Is this love a selfish one? One that serves a personal agenda, one that is a slave to nothing but mere cowardice and fear of my greatest fear itself.

Have I laid down my life, where it isn’t needed?

All but a vain sacrifice & a sacrifice in vain.