A mentor of mine once shared a fascinating story about a trip he took to Africa.
He had travelled for work, and at the end of the trip, he was allowed to go on safari. My mentor was thrilled. Visiting the African wilderness had always been one of his dreams, and now he finally had the opportunity to experience it.
He climbed into a 4×4 Land Rover and set off across the vast landscape. The scenery was breathtaking. Golden grasslands stretched into the distance, broken by patches of green vegetation. Everywhere he looked, there was life.
He saw zebras moving across the plains. There were giraffes stretching their long necks towards the trees. He saw different groups of animals moving through the wilderness. But there was one animal he desperately wanted to see. A lion.
As the safari continued, he kept looking towards the horizon, hoping to catch sight of the king of the jungle in its natural habitat. But the hours passed.
The safari was approaching its conclusion, and the sun was beginning to set.
Still no lion. He was becoming increasingly disappointed. Then, suddenly, he noticed something unusual.
A solitary impala stood in the distance. Impala usually move in herds, so seeing one standing alone immediately caught his attention.
But what was even more unusual was that the animal wasn’t moving. He asked the safari driver why the impala was standing motionless.
The driver looked in the direction of the animal and simply said, “Look over there.”
He looked carefully towards the clearing between the trees. And there it was.
A lion. The animal he had been hoping to see all day had finally appeared. But there was something else about the scene that captured his attention.
The impala had seen the lion too. The driver explained that the impala could actually run much faster than the lion. It possessed the physical ability to escape.
But fear had frozen it. The impala was alone, separated from its herd, and in the presence of danger, it seemed to forget what it was capable of doing.
It had forgotten its strength, speed and the fact that it could run, and that is where the story becomes more than a story about an animal.
It becomes a story about us.
When Fear Makes Us Forget
How many times do we behave like that impala? We know what we are capable of doing when everything is going well.
We know our abilities and our gifts. But then something frightening appears in front of us.
A financial crisis, a difficult diagnosis and suddenly, fear enters the picture, and when fear becomes louder than faith, we can forget who we are.
We can forget what God has placed inside us, and we can forget who we are.
The impala was still an impala. Its speed or strength had not disappeared.
Only its perception had changed. Fear had convinced it that the lion was bigger than its ability to escape. And sometimes fear does the same thing to us.
You Are More Than What You See
The Bible repeatedly reminds us that our identity does not come from our circumstances.
You are not your failure. That means that when life becomes frightening, you don’t have to face it as someone who has been abandoned.
You face it knowing that God is with you.
David understood this when he stood before Goliath.
Jesus said in Matthew 17:20: “If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed… ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove.”
Jesus was teaching His disciples about the power of faith.
Sometimes the mountain in front of us looks immovable, but faith changes the way we look at the mountain.
Remember Whose You Are
The greatest lesson from the impala is not simply “believe in yourself.”
It is something deeper: Remember who you are, and remember whose you are.
You are not facing life’s battles alone. You belong to God.
When fear tells you to freeze, faith tells you to move.
When the enemy appears bigger than you, remember that your strength does not come from yourself.
It comes from God. So don’t allow fear to make you forget your identity.
Don’t let one difficult season convince you that your story is over.
The lion may be real, but so is the God who walks with you. You may be standing before a mountain today, but you don’t stand there alone.
And when fear whispers, “You can’t,” let faith answer: “I know the One who can.”
Remember who you are, whose you are and keep moving forward.
