Evotional.com - Mark Batterson

So encouraged by the stories I'm hearing about the way God is using In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day. Thanks for the emails! Seems like its inspiring lots of people to chase lions and it seems like alot of spiritual seekers are reading the book.

The sovereignty of God never ceases to amaze me! He has a way of getting the book into the right hands at the right time! Someone emailed me last week and said they got a copy right before their daughter had to be rushed to the shock trauma unit of their local hospital. She read the book during some tense moments in a hospital waiting room.

I still remember praying for divine appointments before the book even went to press. I like blogging answers to those prayers as a way of giving credit where credit is due.

Just thought I'd share the story behind the story.

Not sure if I've ever blogged about this before, but I actually wrote the book twice. My editors encouraged me to ditch the first manuscript because of one word in one version of the Bible. The New Living Translation says Benaiah chased the lion.

It was a little depressing to think about rewriting the book, but I'm awfully glad in retrospect. It just seems like chasing lions is the key metaphor. That one word--chase--turned a reactive book into a proactive book. Pretty wild to think that the word chase wasn't even in the first manuscript.

I continue to pray that God would use the book to raise up a generation of lion chasers!