I think it is funny that in this season of life I am again doing wake-up duty, only this time much more is at stake. Sometimes it feels as though I am still wandering among bunks in darkened rooms where I gently shake, stubbornly stay, and at times – glorious times – merely whisper my sisters’ names, and they awaken and arise.
I know I am not alone in this wake-up task, and each of God’s daughters will respond to different means and methods of stimuli to wake her from her slumber. In my case, I’m charged to put some wild principles and beautiful imagery before you. It is my prayer that this revelation of compelling majesty and strength will have the power to awaken something fierce in you so that when you are fully awake, you will know what to do.
The world needs you, lovely lioness sister, not to merely wake up, but to give expression to your God — given, fierce side. What does it look like for a Christian woman to be fierce? Is it yelling and screaming, clawing and kicking? There might be a time for that. I know that if any of my children or grandchildren were being attacked, that anymore would be my reaction. God actually refers to this mama bear-lioness reaction in the book of Hosea and claims it as one of his own.
Like a bear whose cubs have been taken away,
I will tear out your heart.
I will devour you like a hungry lioness
and mangle you like a wild animal. (Hosea 13:8, NLT)
Yikes! This verse definitely captures the ferocious, violent side of fierce, but there is more than mangling violence to be found in this intense word. Other words, which round out the meaning of fierce, include intense, strong, powerful, turbulent, forceful, ardent, and aggressive. I cannot imagine a collection of words that more accurately captures what I feel stirring within me. Without a doubt something turbulent has been awakened that has brought with it greater clarity and power, as though a storm was collecting strength.
This force hasn’t caused personal turmoil; it has brought focus. With greater focus, I found myself increasingly passionate about things of which I was formerly unaware.
Many of these moments awakening have caught me a bit off guard. One came in late October or early November of 2007. I was in the bathroom, of all places, reading a magazine. As I turned the pages, I read for the first time about the atrocities of sex trafficking in Thailand. I finished the article and reread certain paragraphs, almost unable to believe that what I was reading was true. Could people really be this cruel? Could this be happening and I be unaware? I begin to cry, and then I prayed, God, if there is any strength or voice I can lend to this issue, I am your girl. With this prayerful wake-up, something shifted.
A few weeks passed, and then I received a phone call from LIFE Outreach. “Lisa, we are putting a team together to go to Thailand to raise funds and awareness to prevent sex trafficking, and you were the person we thought of sending.” Three months later I was on my way to Thailand as part of LIFE Outreach’s first initiative against human trafficking.
What if I hadn’t prayed that day? What if I had cried, shaken my head, and continued turning pages? Before long I would’ve been looking at the newest skin-care breakthrough, fashion trend, or diet secret. If I had read on rather than prayed, chances are I would have gone to bed at night without ever lifting my voice to heaven. When the issue came to my attention again, I might’ve said something like, “Yeah, I heard about that… Read it in a magazine… That is so sad.”
But when you are awakened, you can’t help but respond. Don’t confuse being awakened with being upset. If something upsets you, you may react in that moment, but being upset about something doesn’t have the power to keep you from turning pages. You can be upset and not awake. But you can’t be fully awake, and therefore alertly aware of the problems in the world, and not respond. That’s why when I read about young girls being kidnapped and thrown into brothels, I had to pray, telling God I would do whatever he wanted me to do to confront this atrocity. My prayer highlighted the opportunity when it came. Would there have been other opportunities? Perhaps, but that one might have been missed.
If you missed LIFE TODAY with Lisa Bevere, visit the television archives. Excerpted from Lioness Arisingby Lisa Bevere (Read more about the book). Copyright (c) 2010 by Lisa Bevere. Used by permission of WaterBrook Press, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
