When Jehovah Allows a Lion to Cross Your Path

[Hubi]

“Then Jehovah’s spirit empowered him, and he tore the lion apart with his bare hands.” — Judges 14:6

Just picture the scene for a moment.

A young man is walking along a dusty road. The sun is high in the sky. Vineyards stretch out on both sides of the path. It seems like a completely ordinary day. No war. No battle. No danger appears to be anywhere in sight.

That morning, Samson surely did not wake up thinking, Today I’m going to fight for my life.

He simply wanted to continue on his way.

But then something completely unexpected happens.

Suddenly, a deafening roar shatters the silence.

Not somewhere in the distance.

Right nearby.

A young lion bursts out of the vineyards. Hungry. Powerful. Fast. Its eyes are fixed on Samson. There is no fence. No tree to climb. No weapon in his hand. No one there to help him.

In that moment, everything is decided.

And that is exactly how life sometimes feels for us too.

We wake up in the morning, perhaps read the daily text, pray to Jehovah, and expect it to be just another ordinary day.

Then suddenly...

...the doctor's phone call comes.

...a job loss.

...a painful disappointment from someone we trusted.

...a diagnosis.

...news that completely knocks the ground out from under our feet.

Or perhaps we suddenly realize that our own courage is fading.

That doubts are growing louder.

That worries have taken hold of our heart.

No one goes looking for those lions.

They simply appear.

And very often we ask ourselves,

“Jehovah... why now? Why me?”

Maybe that isn't the best question.

Perhaps a better question would be,

“Jehovah, what do you want to teach me through this lion?”

Because one thing stands out immediately in Samson’s account.

Jehovah did not keep the lion away.

He certainly could have.

Jehovah could have caused the lion to run in another direction.

He could have prevented Samson from ever meeting it.

But he didn't.

Why?

Not because Jehovah is cruel.

Not because Samson didn't matter to him.

But because Jehovah knew:

Beyond that lion, something even greater was waiting.

Sometimes Jehovah protects us, not by removing every difficulty,

but by giving us the strength to walk straight through it.

How often we pray,

"Jehovah, please take this problem away."

Yet Jehovah may answer,

"I will give you something even more precious.

I will give you strength you don't even know you have yet."

And that is exactly what happened to Samson.

The Bible does not first say that Samson was strong.

It says,

“Then Jehovah’s spirit empowered him.”

That is the key to the whole account.

The hero of this story is not Samson.

The hero is Jehovah.

Samson did not possess superhuman strength on his own.

His strength came from Jehovah.

And that completely changes the way we look at the lions in our own life.

Because we do not have to defeat them by our own strength.

How often do we think,

"I can't do this anymore."

And you know what?

Maybe that's actually true.

On our own, there really are some things we simply cannot do.

But Jehovah has never asked us to fight with our own strength.

He doesn't say,

"Be strong."

He says,

"I will make you strong."

What a tremendous difference!

Perhaps right now you are facing a lion that no one knows about except Jehovah.

Maybe you smile at the Kingdom Hall.

Maybe you share in the ministry.

Maybe no one realizes how much your heart sometimes aches.

No one sees the sleepless nights.

No one hears the quiet prayers.

No one knows about the tears you try so hard to hide.

But Jehovah knows.

He sees every single one of them.

He hears every unspoken prayer.

And that is exactly why he can give you the precise strength you need today.

Not tomorrow.

Today.

There is something else that is interesting.

The lion did not disappear simply because Samson had faith.

He still had to face it.

That is often true for us as well.

Faith does not mean that our difficulties disappear.

Faith means that Jehovah walks through them with us.

And sometimes we experience God's nearness most deeply in the very places where we least expected to find it.

Many servants of Jehovah could tell you that.

They would probably say,

"The hardest period of my life was also the time when I felt closest to Jehovah."

Isn't that remarkable?

Very often, our darkest valleys become the places where our faith grows the deepest.

Later, Samson passed by that place again.

The roaring lion was no longer there.

Instead, he found honey.

Sweetness.

Nourishment.

Something precious.

What a beautiful picture.

Where there had once been fear, he now found something sweet.

Danger had become a blessing.

Pain had become something valuable.

How often we don't understand that until much later.

While we are in the middle of the struggle, nothing seems to make sense.

Only years later do we look back and say,

"Now I understand why Jehovah allowed me to walk that path."

Perhaps without that illness we would never have learned to pray so earnestly.

Perhaps without that disappointment we would never have discovered how faithful Jehovah truly is.

Perhaps without that loss we would never have experienced the love of our spiritual family so deeply.

Perhaps without that lion we would never have discovered the strength that Jehovah could develop within us.

The lion was meant to destroy Samson.

Yet in the end, that very lion became part of his story.

Not because of the lion.

But because of Jehovah.

Perhaps one day your greatest struggle will no longer be the chapter of your life that fills you with shame.

Perhaps it will become the chapter that gives someone else courage.

Perhaps one day someone will ask,

"How did you make it through?"

And you will be able to answer,

"Not me.

Jehovah carried me."

Isn't that the most beautiful answer of all?

So let us change where we focus our attention.

Not constantly on the lion.

But on the One who is stronger than every lion.

The lion roars loudly.

But Jehovah's voice is stronger.

The lion brings fear.

Jehovah gives peace.

The lion wants us to give up.

Jehovah wants to show us that, with his help, we can accomplish far more than we ever thought possible.

Perhaps today you are standing right in front of such a lion.

You don't know what tomorrow will bring.

You feel small.

Weak.

Perhaps even alone.

Then remember Samson.

Not his muscles.

Not his courage.

But the one sentence that changed everything:

“Then Jehovah’s spirit empowered him.”

That same Jehovah is still alive today.

He has not changed.

He knows your name.

He knows your story.

He knows your tears.

And he also knows the lion standing in front of you right now.

So don't step into tomorrow filled with fear.

Walk into it with Jehovah.

Perhaps he will not remove the lion immediately.

But he will never leave you to face it alone.

And perhaps one day you will look back and realize:

The lion was never proof that Jehovah had abandoned me.

It was the very place where Jehovah showed me more clearly than ever before just how close he had always been.