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Lions' Den Survival Principles 24-Part Series

57 Lions' Den Survival Principles

Lions' Den Survival Principles PART 1 of 24

Making a Living vs. Making a Life

Daniel 6

I remember seeing my friend, the young seminarian, ashen-faced and visibly shaking as he faced the faculty and student body. Each member of our class was required to prepare and deliver a sermon to the entire seminary chapel and then to sit through the faculty's public evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of that effort on the following Friday. Both were terror-filled occasions.

The handsome, baby-faced student shuffled his notes nervously, looked out at the great stone faces of the faculty and blurted out, "I feel like a lion in a den of Daniels."

I've thought often over the years of the insight in that superficially convuluted statement. Is it possible that the often hostile environment of a media profession can be turned so that the power resides on the side of the prophets more than on the side of the lions? I think so.

I've wept with a media executive in a major studio who was terminated by her homosexual boss for appearing on Pat Robertson's 700 Club. I've comiserated with a producer who was relieved of his position for including spiritual content in the series he produced. I've sat through tirades at media conventions against "born-againers" and the "religious right" and "evangelicals" and "fundamentalists" and realized that, at some level, the anger was aimed at me. More often, I've felt the pressure of media pros to keep quiet about deep, personal faith because of fear of reprisals from peers and bosses was very real and very great.

What are principles for survival in a hostile environment? Survival Principle 1: First, you must have a clear definition of your moral non-negotiables. Every person should have a written or mental list of those situaations or expectations in which he willing to risk the job for what's right. When Daniel's king decreed death to all those who prayed to any other God but him, he crossed Daniel's predetermined "non'negotiable" line. Daniel had determined that he was willing to risk his job or even his life rather than not pray to Jehovah (Dan.6:10). The failure to determine what one's personal non-negotiables are before pressure situations arise invites being pushed into personal, spiritual betrayal when the time of the pressure comes.

Survival Principle 2: Secondly, you must weigh the immediate cost of defending your righteous standards against the long term cost of violating them. The short term, immediate costs of taking a stand are very "now," very real, and very visible. the long term costs—though often far greater—are very future, very abstract, and nearly invisible.

A Christian director turned down what would have been steady, directorial work on a long-running show because some of the scripts made sport of Jesus Christ. A TV producer was asked to put sex and violence into a series, and he replied, "I'm sure you won't have difficulty finding producers to do that for you, but we don't do sex and violence." Another series producer made it clear that, as a Christian, she wouldn't do material that communicated untrue concepts of God and the supernatural world.

The director was given better work to replace what he lost. The first producer is in high demand because word of his integrity has gotten around. the second producer got the network nod to do the show anyway. In all three cases, in different ways, God took care of them.

Even more imporant, all three are free from the burden of having sold a piece of their souls for a mere job. They don't have to carry the guilt or discipline of having denied their Master in the interests of Mammon.

Too often I've heard Christians say, "It's not the kind of work I want to do but . . ." (a) "I need the work," (b) "It'll look good on my resume," or (c) "I hope it will get me to a position whereI can do good stuff." Dangerous statements.

Perhaps you've heard the expression, "His strength is as the strength of ten because his heart is pure." The purehearted, graciously immovable Christian in media takes on a special kind of power that shuts the mouths of the lions and lionesses in the den. It is God's power!

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© 2000-2004 Larry W. Poland, Ph.D., Mastermedia International, Inc.