I read one of Aesop’s Fables this week: The Lion and the Mouse. I hadn’t read the fable for many years, and I had never related it to the Christian faith—but this time, I did.
As the fable goes, a lion is peacefully sleeping when a tiny mouse, in her fright and haste, runs across the lion’s nose. The lion awakens and catches the mouse with his giant paw, prepared to kill her.
The mouse begs for her life and assures the lion that one day, she will repay him.
Perhaps a bit amused, the lion is impressed by the mouse’s pledge and lets her go.
Some days later, when the lion is seeking prey in the forest, he is suddenly caught in a hunter’s net. He is unable to escape and roars. The mouse hears the roar and races to find the lion struggling in the net. She gnaws at the ropes until he is freed.
She reminds him of her pledge and tells him that he can now see that even a tiny mouse can help a lion.
Though the moral of the story is that “kindness is never wasted,” I believe there is much more in the story that pertains to our Christian faith.
First, the Bible instructs us to see things from the other person’s perspective. When Paul explains who Christ is to the Athenians, he appeals to them through a monument they had erected to an unknown god, a statue that would cover them over and above all known Gods. Paul states that Christ is the God who was unknown to them when they erected the monument. When the mouse appeals to the lion for her life, she plants the thought that she might be of benefit to the lion in the future. She appeals to the lion’s self-interest in freeing her, just as Paul appeals to the Athenian’s best interest to please this hitherto unknown God.
Second, the Bible tells us that we don’t know the future. The lion thought this mouse would never be of help to him—but he freed her anyway. The future is known only to God. We pray for wisdom and discernment that only He can give.
Third, the story shows us that size and position do not ultimately matter. What does matter is that we rise to the occasion when we are called to do so. David, though just a boy, took on the giant Goliath—a challenge the grown men around him had refused to take on. Empowered by God, with only a simple stone, he felled the giant that armies feared. And, with just her teeth and grit, this tiny mouse freed the mighty lion.
Lastly, we look at the story from the lion’s perspective and learn that it is best to have a humble attitude in all we do and speak, as the Bible instructs. We don’t know what troubles await us. We don’t know who will be there to pick us up. We see that even “the least of these” is great in the Kingdom. We don’t know whom God will select to help us out of the pits that await us.
It is good to look at the fable from both the mouse’s perspective and that of the lion because, at some points in life, we will likely be like each.