Peace in the Lion’s Eye

Wes Schools
Aug 8, 2017 · 5 min read

How the peace of God leads to the ambition of man

Have you ever looked a lion in the eye? I’m to scared.

Psalm 23 is one of the most popular passages in the Bible. Often quoted or read before the child's bedtime, Psalm 23 is known for its poetic words and peaceful incitement. I do believe that the peace of God can give you the emotional contentment of quiet waters and green pastures. But it is a mistake to think that the peace of God is a quiet and soft characteristic of his.

For the peace of God is a dangerous lion.

The peace of God is explosive and has no limit. It has the power to overtake all things, to conquer all things, and not one thing can contain its might.

Like many Christians, I’ve prayed a long time for God to give me peace. Life is hard and emotional stability is like finding $10 bucks in the dryer, something I always hope to find, even tho I’m the one who put the jeans in the dryer. I recently realized how exciting and energizing the peace of God can be. The realization didn’t come from a mountain top experience, rather in my mom’s basement. (Yeah, I’m one of those college kids.) I realized that I should not see God’s gift of peace to me as a quiet heart and of lowly experience. Instead, God’s gift of peace is reason why I should be ambitious today. I wake with peace of God and shut my eyes with the peace of God. Why should I see what can be done during the day as quiet waters or peaceful rest when knowing I have the peace of the God Almighty?

The peace of God is why I chase my dreams.

It’s true. If you have the peace of God and you know it, you are dangerous. The peace of God comes from knowing the surreal truth that you are a child of God and nothing can touch that truth. Because of what Jesus did on the cross for you and I, we are children of God. Nothing less. Nothing more. So if you know you are a fully known and fully loved child of God, then you will have peace in all of your ambitions, stresses, dreams, and circumstances. You are a lion with peace in its eye. You have freedom to run and fall, to try and fail, to dream and succeed. You are dangerous because you can try and fail or try and succeed, either way you a just a child of God. Nothing more. Nothing less. (And that is a dangerous eye tp look into.)

I really did want to find a non-biblical story to tell, but Jesus is just too much of a dangerous lion to not talk about.

If you pick any of the gospels and read from the time of Jesus’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem to his death on the cross, you will have read the greatest example of peace seen in a lion’s eye. ( Matthew 21–27, Mark 11–15, Luke 19–23, John 12–19) When you read the gospel story, you not only get to see the greatest event of the world unfold, you are reading about a man experiencing our very own world in a way never experienced before. When Jesus knew it was time for his betrayals, beatings, mockery's, torments, and ultimately his death on a cross, he had a Holy Holy Holy peace in his eyes. This is not to say he didn’t feel the nails piece his hands and feet, or feel emotional pain of God and man both abandoning him as he hung on a cross between heaven and earth. He must definietly felt the physical and emotion pain of his death, but that is not to say he didn’t have peace with it. Jesus knew who he was. Jesus knew the promise of his life. Jesus’s ambition was to fulfill God’s promise for his life, to be the final sacrifice for the sins of the world. How different is the ambition of your life? We both know God is not asking you or I to take on the sins of the world. But how different are the ambitions of your life? Does God not ask us to fulfill the purpose he gives us? He has promised a unique purpose and different ambitions for each of our lives. Jesus began all of his ambitions with the peace of God. For he knew the peace of God ignites man’s greatest ambition. How was your fire started? Are you setting out on your adventure with the peace of God around your neck? Ambitions pursued with the peace of God are often met by God-sized results.


Here’s how to pursue your life ambitions with the peace of God:

  1. The ambitions need to be God honoring. God is not going to honor the ambition if it is not honoring to him. We know our purpose is to spell God’s glory. How you spell out God’s Glory is your life ambition.
  2. The ambitions need to be bigger than your resources. The one sure way we know God won’t act is if he is not needed to act. There are multiply times where I have prayed for God’s intervention and I saw no response. Not because he doesn’t want to, but because I didn’t believe he was big enough to accomplish what I asked. The vision needs to be God-sized, our resources need to insufficient, and there must be an all-out belief ( a.k.a. foolishness) that God has accomplished the ambition before it has actually happened.
  3. Prayer is everything. You need to be consistently in praying for the ambitions. The bigger the ambitions are, the more you need to place them into God’s hand through prayer and praise.
  4. Seek God’s promises. Don’t seek your answers with your prayer requests, seek God with your prayer requests and his answers will be given. (caution: doing this is crazy dangerous)

God has a personal promise for your life, seek him. Here’s a promise that God gives us everyday. He is faithful. No matter was life mean for you today, God is faithful. And I’ll tell the truth, most days I’m unfaithful and not as ambitious as a dangerous lion, but everyday I am a child of God standing redeemed in the presence of my Father.


You’re full of life
You’re full of passion
That’s how He made you
Just let it happen

O Praise the one who paid my debt
And raised this life up from the dead

Jesus it’s always been You
Jesus it always is You
Jesus it always will be You

Wes Schools

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https://wesschools.com

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