The Child as the Heir.

As part of the Christmas festivities my husband and i visited "The lion's park" in South Africa. This is a resort which houses animals of different species in their natural habitat. Talk of antelopes,roebucks, zebras, ostriches, wild dogs, leopards etc and of course not to forget the Lions who are the king of the jungle. This was a place where tourist could visit these wild animals in their natural habitat without them being caged.

We went round with the warden in a tourist truck where he taught us about each of the animals and their various breeds and also answered any questions that we had. It was quiet fun. However when we got to the lions part it was very daunting.

Merrhhhnnn!!! these were real, live African lions who are not in cages or even sedated. The only thing that kept our fear under check was that they had been fed so they weren't hungry or aggressive. Even in that state we knew well to keep our distance. We were in the truck and no one dared to come out to touch them. They were fearful even as they lounged gloriously under their shades. Something quiet interesting that I noticed was that; each male lion had its own territory and wouldn't share it with another unless they were lioness; simply put their wives or concubines.

Then there came the time to visit their cute little cubs. The cubs were separated from the parents from birth until 6 months and then returned to them afterwards. The interesting part of meeting the cubs was this. They were so cute and harmless. These were caged and there was quite a number of them in one cage. I guess the principle of ruling their own territory didn't apply here. We entered their cage to play with these cubs. Here you could actually touch them and pat their backs. This was a vast contrast to the parent huge lions which we met back there.

Then it hit me about what the apostle Paul said in Galatians 4:1-7;;that the heir as long as he remained a child is no different from a slave even though they owned the entire estate. There it was; as simply as that. Here we were playing with cubs. We could touch them, run our hands through their back, carry them and feel no fear of them because they didn't  yet know who they were or what they were capable of. They even didn't know yet that we were supposed to be afraid of them. 

Imagine how we often look like to the devil when we do not come into a full realization of who we are in Christ Jesus and become as paupers in the sights of circumstances and events he throws at us.