When thinking about one’s humble abode, many avoid imagining blood on the walls, limbs strewn upon the floor, and scattered viscera from the people who resided there.
Most would consider that a nightmare.
That’s with the reductive thinking of a self-absorbed mind.
You see, the subject of horrific illusions for us sons and daughters of Adam is the stuff of dreams for a lion.
That’s why the king of Babylon created a lion’s den to punish the most vile of criminals for their abominable ways.
Murderers felt their victim’s pain.
The flesh of thieves was taken right off their bones.
Men who used others for their own wicked wants were simply used for sustenance.
The lions were well nourished by countless sinners and Babylon became a city all wanted to come to.
If it was all sinners though, there would be no story.
Eventually, the crown passed down to a man worse than the lot of them.
He passed a law forbidding anyone to pray to someone other than himself.
Daniel, a man from Israel, stolen as a child to become a slave was devout to the lord, my god.
Revering the lord was more important to him than any of man’s laws so he prayed every day to Yahweh.
As expected, the king’s guards threw him into the den expecting him to suffer the fate of those before him.
The night passed and to the shock of all but Daniel himself, he was still alive.
They first thought maybe the lions weren’t hungry.
That thought quickly erased when they saw one of the beasts sucking the bone marrow out of a past victim’s remains.
When they asked Daniel how he survived, he simply said he was found blameless before them.
The lord protected him and the guards let him free as the sole survivor of the pandemonium known as the lion’s den.
This was before Christ and as things change, some stay the same.
Soon, abominations will enter another lion den and the lions already smell your sin seeping out of every pore.
Some are more pungent than others.
Pyre, you killed countless beings with your battlecry of “off with their head!” but it’s time for your head to be severed.
Sigil, your thieving ways are the stuff of legends but in this lion den, the only thing you’ll be taking is your last breath.
SeeSaw, how many abominations have you created and played with? Realize, this is no toybox, you’re in the lion den and it’s their turn to play.
The rest of you shouldn’t look so relieved.
None of you are clean.
All of us will go into the lion den and only one won’t be part of their tarnished feast with spoiled meat and tainted blood.
The lord will protect me as he had protected Daniel millenia ago.
The difference is that the lions of Sir Renault and Sir Bellator will be raising my hand after they wash their mouths of the unclean masses.
After all, I am blameless and if Daniel can survive the lion den, I can survive another abode meant for slaughter.
Daniel 6:27
He rescues and he saves.
Amen.