Carolyn Arends Album: Under the Gaze Track: Not A Tame Lion
Not A Tame Lion Lyrics
Carolyn Arends
I make you in my image More often than not I keep you like a treasure In my jewelry box But you smash through my illusions Like only you can do And you break apart these idols That I make of you And oh - sometimes you whisper But oh - sometimes you roar
You're not a tame lion You're not meek and mild Your tenderness is reckless And your mercy's wild You're not a lucky rabbit's foot And you're not Santa Claus There is a certain fury to the love of God You're not a tame lion
Your passion is consuming Your holiness is fire Your Spirit is a hunter Whom no runner can tire Your light shines in the darkness To the corners of the earth Your laughter is the music Of the universe And oh - you're not safe But oh - you are good
You're not a tame lion ...
You're the Lion of Judah, Spotless Lamb The First and Last, the Great I AM Word That Is and Is To Come King of Kings, Three in One Jehovah-Jireh, El Shaddai El Elyon and Adonai Lord of Life, Lord of Love Son of Man, Almighty God
C 2004 Carolyn Arends Music (SOCAN)
About the Song
There are two CS Lewis quotes I've always loved:
My idea of God is not a Divine Idea. It has to be shattered time after time. He shatters it Himself. He is the great iconoclast. Could we not almost say that this shattering is one of the marks of His presence?
And
What do people mean when they say 'I am not afraid of God because I know he is good'? Have they never even been to a dentist?
Both these ideas are embodied wonderfully in the tender and ferocious lion Alsan who ultimately rules Lewis' Narnia. Lewis, more than any other writer, has helped me to see the ways I attempt to domesticate God, and has urged me to instead celebrate the other-ness and awesome-ness and even fearsome-ness of our very great God. (Romans 11:33-36)
Lewis' influence - and my own encounters with the wild side of God - began to bubble up in a song while I was waiting backstage for a concert to begin in Indiana. The whole concert I was trying to simultaneously perform and keep the new bits of music and lyrics tucked away safely in the back of mind.
Spencer's extended fiddle solo in the middle of the track is our attempt to go to Narnia for a bit. I think I like it there!
