The Lion In the Marble

The little boy approached the great sculptor who was creating a mighty lion figure out of marble. It was to be placed at the entrance to a magnificent new government building. As the boy watched the sculptor work and the shape of the lion became apparent, the boy questioned the sculptor: “Sir, tell me, how did you know that there was a lion in the marble?”

The sculptor looked up and, seeing the boy’s genuine curiosity, replied: “I knew there was a lion in the marble because before I saw the lion in the marble I saw him in my own heart. The secret is that it was the lion in my heart who recognized the lion in the marble.”

As Christians, we can well apply this story to our relationship with Jesus Christ - the Lion of Judah (Rev. 5:5; Hosea 5:14). Human beings are composed of three parts: spirit, soul and body (1 Thes. 5:23). I like to say: I AM a spirit, I HAVE a soul, and I LIVE IN a body. When we accept Christ as Savior and Lord, the Spirit of Christ comes and joins with our human spirit in an eternal living union. The soul (the mind, emotions and will) is the control panel for the body. The rest of our human life is to be spent transforming and conforming our soul choices (our control panel choices) to the awareness of who we are at our core, our human spirit.

The sculptor said, “...before I saw the lion in the marble I saw him in my own heart.” For us Christians, the “marble” can represent our soul and the “heart” is our human spirit united to Christ.

During the first two-thirds of my life, I found it very difficult to see the Lion in the marble of my soul. I thought that there was an Anaconda (Satan) and a Lion (Christ) battling for my soul and the snake seemed to win out much of the time.

The sculptor continued, “. . . The secret is that it was the lion in my heart who recognized the lion in the marble.” It was not until I saw Christ the Lion united forever to my human spirit that I was able to see the potential Lion in the marble of my soul. The Lion has to be carved out daily by a discipline of awareness and trust in the assured power of Christ within. How does the Lion appear out of the marble? - By chipping away in pieces everything that IS NOT THE LION!

Awareness! Awareness is of who we are at our core spirit - Jesus Christ! We awaken ourselves daily to the God in us and let Him enter into our heartbeat and our breathing, into our thoughts and emotions, our hearing, seeing, touching and tasting - our soul and body senses. It is by being awake to this God in us that Christ can chip away in the marble everything that is not the Lion and create Him in our souls and bodies so that the world can see Him through us.

To the world, many Christian souls are very opaque. People see nothing in the marble but a thick, impenetrable block of stone. We Christians must grow daily in a careful attentiveness to Him who dwells in the center of our being, such that through the recognition of His presence we allow Him to take possession of ALL our senses.

The key to having the ability to chip away what is NOT Christ in our soul and to shape out the form of Christ in our soul is the recognition that the old “anaconda” -Satan - is not battling the Lion WITHIN our soul because the snake has already been defeated and thrown out. He can only hiss at us or, alternatively, try to charm and smooth talk us from a distance, externally and not internally.

But let us not underestimate this struggle to sculptor out the Lion in the marble. The world around us would constantly try to confuse us about what parts of the marble are the Lion and are not the Lion. The world would have us not chip off parts that should be chipped or, on the other hand, make us chip off parts that should remain in the structure of the Lion.

But the correct sculptoring can and will be accomplished, not in our own hard work and strength, but by our trust in Christ within. God has promised us that the Lion in the marble WILL gradually take shape on a daily basis. We are all in the “art class” of life and we have the Perfect Instructor of the class. Some of us will create a very recognizable marble Lion in the course of our human life. Others may only get halfway through the process with only a “Lion’s head” before they die. What God wants is the steady PROCESS, and He does not expect perfection.

How much “Lion” is being exposed
in the marble of YOUR soul??

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