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Seeing
Brian Mashburn
May 31, 2020
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Seeing
It is sad to me, but I am fairly confident that I can no longer assume that most people reading this article have seen the amazing movie entitled, "The Lion King". I am not speaking of the most recent release, but the animated version that came out long ago.
There is a scene where Simba, the lion cub who is the son of the lion king named Mufasa, ventures off into an area of the kingdom that is very dangerous. There he meets the dreaded hyenas, who proceed to harass him and threaten him, and they even begin to move towards him and his friend with intent on killing them.
Simba is a prince, and a lion, and he knows it. So he does what he knows he should do. He roars with a furious roar of warning! Unfortunately, it was barely cat's meow. The hyenas laugh in his face, as they sarcastically act like they should be cowering in fear at such a mighty display.
As the observer, you know that Simba is in serious trouble.
Undeterred, Simba tries to dig deeper. He rears back, grits his teeth viciously, pulls in his breath with all of his might, and lets it rip again. Only this time, a powerful, mature, formidable roar blasts unarguably from the movie screen! This time, the hyenas are not acting, and they dare not be sarcastic. They run. They run in legitimate fear. Simba is very satisfied with himself.
But what we then are allowed to see is that it was not Simba who caused such a turn of events. It was not Simba who moved things in an instant from unsafe to safe. It was not Simba, who we could see on the screen, that altered the circumstance from bad to good.
It was his father Mufasa. His father had tracked him down, and he was behind Simba, unseen by us. When Simba roared, his father roared with him, lending all of his power and might. It was the unseen father who made the difference.
I love that scene. I think because it speaks to a reality that I need as I walk the "dangerous places" of life. The Bible teaches that there is a whole world, a whole Kingdom, that is unseen to us, but that is just as real as the physical one in which we live.
If only we had eyes to see?
In our 2020 Southwest Bible Project reading from this past week, we meet the prophet Elisha. He is depicted as a character who knows and see and depends on His unseen Father in Heaven. It affects everything for him... how he feels, what he says, how he reacts.
God wants our eyes wide open to the unseen realities of His Kingdom truth so that we can be more like Elisha.