There is nothing quite as fear-inducing as the roar of a lion. I remember, as a child, going to the zoo and into the large cat area to see the lions. Back then, the large cats were kept in a huge building, with their cages lining the two sides of the room. Every time I would enter, I’d be both excited and nervous, because sometimes the lions would roar. Let me tell you, if you have never been inside a building with a roaring lion, you have no idea how loud it can be. They would let out these huge roars that would literally vibrate your chest… You could feel the power of those giant beasts trembling the very atmosphere of the room.
A roaring lion is enough to terrify anyone even when he’s inside a cage, but what if the lion is outside of a cage, and its entire purpose is to find someone to eat? Satan knows that his “roars” are terrifying, which is why he roams around, throwing his voice. This is a tactic he uses to get you more and more afraid, so that when something bad happens, it always seems far worse. There is an interesting, and little known fact about lions that might help to put things into perspective, though.
When lions get old and lose teeth, they are no longer able to hunt and attack, so they become the guards of the pride. Their entire purpose is to roar and scare any approaching prey towards the younger lions, so they can attack. The young lions do not waste their time roaring, they only attack. The Bible says the devil is a roaring lion; when we put it in this context, we understand that this means he has no teeth! He is a defeated foe! All he can do is roar to scare us. Our pastor shares an acronym that goes along with this; Fear is False Evidence Appearing Real. This is exactly what the enemy wants! He wants us to fear him, but it’s all a farce!
The Bible tells us that we are to resist the devil, and he will flee. If we do not feed into the fear, he has no other option but to give up. Whenever we sit and dwell on a worry or fear, we are giving the enemy place in our minds that he has no right to. We have to line up our thoughts with what God has said for us.
For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. 2 Timothy 1:7
Self-Reflection
Are there times in your life that you have been so afraid of a certain outcome that when it happened, it looked worse than it really was?
How can you rely on God in order to overcome fear?