The Wonder of The Lion Tamer and The Chair

Did you ever wonder? Did you ever wonder?

I do. Did you ever wonder? Why the sun always rises but the stars never fall?

Why dry land is never satisfied by water? And why fire never says enough? The wonder of the lion tamer and the chair. So, I don't know if you've ever given this any thought but I heard this amazing illustration from a friend in Nikita Kolos and Bill Murdock and he said, do you ever wonder why a lion tamer takes a chair into the cage when he's going to tame that lion? He also has a whip usually but which one do you think is his more effective tool? The whip or the chair?

And, fascinatingly, I learned a lot from this. The reason that lion tamer takes a chair in there is that when he pushes the chair at the lion, he pushes four legs in his face. And the idea of that is the lion doesn't really know how to deal with four things coming at him. He knows how to deal with one thing coming at him.

That's the whip and you'll see him swipe his paw at it. But when he sees the chair, he has a tendency to just sit down because he's overwhelmed by what's coming at his face. And I don't know if you've noticed, I think that Satan is particularly good at pushing the chair in my face.

He's coming at me at the same time. Now it's interesting what God has been teaching me this week. We did a show on prayer with Masculine Journey and my good friend Andy had this illustration which I think has everything to do with the lion tamer and the chair and there certainly has been fun for me this week to apply it. When it comes to prayer, we have so many things flying at us that it's hard to know what to do.

So we lay down and do nothing sometimes, or I do. So anyway, my friend Andy, he was a big Cardinal fan back when he was a kid and he loved to collect the ballcards and he was wanting whole sets of ballcards. And so he'd always say, Mom, take me to the store. I need to buy some ballcards. And of course, his mom would say, we'll see, which he knew meant no. And then he'd go back to his mom again and again, all through the day, Mom, take me to the store. I need some ballcards. And she'd say, we'll see. And he said, the interesting thing about that was that I was really not pushing into the relationship with my mom. I was just wanting her to be a vending machine. I go to mom, she gives me ballcards.

However that works, I don't know exactly, but it does work that way. If you've ever had kids, you know, when they get something like that on their mind, then clearly, you know, it's all about the ballcards and they can't get their mind off of it, which is good because to an extent, you know, children need to work on that idea of desire. God loves it.

But here's the interesting thing, as he mentioned it, and I thought about it more and more, that he didn't push into his relationship with his mother. But as I've thought about this since we aired the show, I wish I'd known this or thought about it beforehand, was that, you know, if you just climbed up in God's lap, told him how much you loved him, and truly meant that sincerely, and like, what can I do for you, God? Or what should I be praying for?

What's the best thing for me to do today? And all those kind of questions. And again, you know, just snuggling with his mom and showing her how much he loved her and, you know, simply want to serve her however he could do about it, go about it. Believe me, he'd add more ballcards than he could have counted, right? And so, you know, the idea there is, as I've thought about it, right, that, man, seek ye first, essentially a big hug from God.

Just push into him and go into the relationship. And all these things will be added. You'll have all the ballcards you could possibly imagine. And I think that works for all the different things that we pray for. And so I've been working on that this week, and interestingly, I had a wonderful talk with my oldest sister a couple days ago, and just, you know, this is an illustration of all that. She was asking me, what do you think God likes to be called? What do you think is his favorite? You know, does he prefer Yeshua? Does he prefer Jesus?

Does he prefer Father? And again, you know, trying to relate to the Trinity is always an interesting situation, you know, when you pray. Whose name are you going by? Which obviously Jesus said, our Father, and, you know, that's significant. But I said, well, Cindy, you know, I know that God loves pet names because he's got one for you. And I think it's an absolutely delightful exercise to ask God what you call me. But I'm going to, you know, I would just say, I think you've got a great idea in that childlike spirit is, you know, what would you like me to call you, Jesus? Like, what would you like me to call you?

And so this morning I decided to apply that to the whole ballcard scenario. Like, I just climbed up in Father's lap and with Jesus, the Holy Spirit present, all that going on and said, oh, you know, Jesus, what should I call you? What is the name that you would like me to call you? And he gave me something I'm not going to share. Because he gave it to me in Hebrew and it's fairly complicated, but absolutely beautiful. Let me just say the name he gave me was his great, great, great, great, great.

One of his great grandfathers. It was just absolutely spectacular what he gave me. And I had a great time pushing into that and thinking about it. But part of the reason I don't want to tell you what he told me is because I want you to ask him yourself like, man, God, what do you want me to call you? Maybe you do that with the Father. Maybe you do that with the Holy Spirit.

And by the way, I've done that, too, and had a lot of fun with that. And then I said, well, is there any new names for me that you would like to use for me? Or, you know, what do you call me? What would be a good name, a good pet name to call me?

And he said, well, Robbie, I don't know if you really, really thought about Robbie. I really like the name Robbie. And the interesting thing about my name, Robbie, is that originally when I was born, my name's Robert Bruce Dilmore Jr.. I was named after my father. And since my father went by Bob and they didn't want any confusion in the house, they called me Bruce. And so I went by Bruce for many, many, many, many years. And when I had to do the sixth grade the second time, I felt like I needed to turn over a new leaf. And we were moving from Illinois to Michigan, so it was a clean deal for me.

I could go to the sixth grade again and nobody would know any different because obviously these people never met me before, wouldn't know what grade I did last. And so I decided to change my name to Bob Jr., essentially. Since it worked for my dad, I love my dad, I'm going to go by his name. And so I changed my name, which actually, if you ever look at my signature, I still sign my name, Bob Dilmore Jr.. I just got so used to signing it that way for so many years that for years and years I went by Bob Dilmore. And so a lot of folks that knew me back when I was in my teens and early 20s would still refer to me as Bob. So when I moved to Savannah, Georgia years later, I went to work at a Nissan BMW Mercedes Benz dealership and I worked for my dad there. And everybody called me Bob Jr. and they said it with a snare, like Junior, like that was some kind of, there was a connotation to that I did not like.

That I was the boss's son, so to speak. And however it worked, I just decided, man, I do not like this Bob Jr. thing. And so considering we were moving again to Texas and my father was going to open a new dealership and I would get another clean shot at this, I decided I was going to change my name away from Bob Jr. And as I processed the different ways I could use my name, I remembered my father had a good friend when we were growing up by the name of Robbie. And even though he was definitely an older gentleman, he went by Robbie. And I always loved that name and had a really nice sweet sound in it to me. And I said, well, I'm just going to change my name to Robbie. And again, now I know maybe God had something to do with it. He was giving me this in my mind.

I don't know. But anyway, I've gone by Robbie since, you know, probably 1978, something like that. So it's been a long time that I've been Robbie and some people call me Rob, but I really prefer Robbie.

And there's two B's and a Y by the way. So this morning, Jesus had me go through the idea of Robbie. Like, what does that mean? You know, so again, you know, to me, this was just a delightful time.

I didn't ask for any ball cards. It's just essentially just me and Jesus hanging out and talking. And so as I began to think through what Robbie was, it starts with a race.

Right. And that idea of the head of a river. And people that know me may know that I head off in interesting directions at times and no doubt with a lot of passion.

And the idea of the race is definitely a passionate considering of things. And then the second letters would then be B's and actually two B's and two B's would be the letter bet. And the idea of the letter bet is both a house, but more so to me, even understanding. And so as I was unpacking that with the Jesus, he said, we'll see Robbie. And he's told me this before in a way that I had an older brother that passed away. He said, I gave you your understanding plus his. And so you have those two B's in your name because you have a double dose of understanding. And I have enjoyed so many times people go, well, you know, I don't know. I just know God gives me stuff and and I guess because I like to climb up in his lap and love on him.

And, you know, I don't let the four legs of the chair get at me, however that works. And then interestingly, the way that Jesus's name ended in the name that he gave me. Excuse me, the name he told me he wanted to go by this morning, it ended in the letter Yud, which is the Y at which is a Y at the end of Robbie. And that idea of the letter Yud is this idea of contracted light. It's the life force itself. And so it's like I got a double dose of understanding of the of the light, the uncreated light, the light that we're all going to see in heaven when there's no more sun and that kind of thing. And that idea of the letter Yud is really powerful because almost everything is made out of it. And so to have an understanding, a double understanding of the Yud is truly a gift, truly a gift that I enjoy. And I hope you enjoy pondering it all with me and the idea of the wonder of the lion tabor and the chair. So don't get caught up in those four prongs coming at you today. Just just push into God and believe me, you'll have all the ball cards you ever want. Thanks for listening.