Cacophony Review: Chasing Lions

What Lion is God calling you to chase? It's the question In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day heads towards from its first page. Based on memorable titles alone, the book has kicked truly. The author, Mark Batterson, whose blog we feature on Cacophony, and who pastors National Community Church in Washington DC, begins with a seemingly random verse from 2 Samuel 23:

Benaiah son of Jehoiada was a valiant fighter from Kabzeel, who performed great exploits. He struck down two of Moab's best men. He also went down into a pit on a snowy day and killed a lion.

So begins a book about opportunity in adversity, about facing the music rather than running for cover and about recognising the defining moments in life.

In many ways Chasing Lions is about risk, opportunity cost and sins of ommission. And while undoubtedly recognising the power and character-refining work of the Holy Spirit in this process, Batterson communicates in a style that is joyfully (largely) devoid of penti-speak.

Chasing Lions unpacks the obstacles to chasing the lions in our lives. Defying odds, facing fears, reframing problems, embracing uncertainty, taking risks, seizing opportunities and looking foolish are among them.

Make no mistake, this book isn't about selling all you have and putting it all on Jesse's Boy on the 5th at Doomben. It's about the God-ordained-Ephesians 2:10 type opportunities that we resist for the fear of failure. And, in some ways, it's about failing too. A question I've asked myself in the wake of Chasing Lions is 'how often am I failing'? Not spiritual, moral or character failure, but how many risks am I taking in work, in building relational intimacy, and in exposing myself to God-sized opportunities. The answer is: a bit but not enough.

Batterson casts our safe, adult, strategic lives against the unplanned mayhem of Pentecost at one point:

Here's a novel thought: What if we actually did what they did in the bible? What if we fasted and prayed for ten days? What if we sought God with some ancient intensity instead of spending all our energy trying to eliminate His surprises? Maybe then we'd experience some ancient miracles.

The revealing thought is that the more of an agenda we throw at God, the more we determine the prevalence of self and the more we cut our selves off from God-sized opportunities (which are often more daring, more engaging and more defining than anything we can come up with). Ultimately, we discover that playing it safe with God is risky. And opening up to God is for the crash-helmet wearing thrillseeker.

Batterson and I share at least one thing in common: a belief in the importance of looking foolish. To be childlike (though not necessarily immature) is to allow ourselves to see the world through different eyes, from a different angle. Batterson introduced me to a new word: neoteny. Neoteny is the retention of youthful qualities by adults. He quotes someone quite famous who said: I tell you the truth, unless you change to become like little children you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

As we see life through the eyes of a child, some of our fears and precautions are given their appropriate valence against the opportunities that stand up and bite us.

Batterson reckons that we all have a primal longing to do something crazy for God. I'm with him. We mightn't be waiting for a lion on a snowy day...neither was Benaiah. Yet he was obviously preparing for a big challenge and seized it when it came.

There's a whole lot of books lining the shelves of Christian bookstores that are high on fluff and low on content. While this won't go down as a long (182pgs), heavy-weight or intellectual tome by any stretch, there is a good balance between a call to live a life that exposes us to opportunity and a life that engages our minds at the same time.

Consider Chasing Lions a Berocca for the journey as a follower of Christ. If I was rating it out of 10 for genre, I'd go 7.5

Chased any lions lately?

PS. By the way, since he wrote the book, he's written a Lion Chasers' Manifesto which you may want to read over.