Having the Courage to Slide

Endurance is the thrilling account of Antarctic explorer Sir Ernest Shackelton’s odyssey in which his ship is crushed in the ice and he spends the next 16 or more months traveling across ice floes in an effort to save his 28 man crew.  In order to bring them to safety, he must get them to the point of Antarctica that is closest to South America, in the hopes that some of them can sail across to a whaling village that is located there.  When they finally reach this point, three of them, including Shackleton himself, rig their tiny boat and sail across the treacherous seas to the island where the village is.  They reach the island safely, but this is not the end of their dangers.  They must cross a mountain range in order to get to the other side of the island where the village is.  They reach the top of the mountains and are slowly picking and cutting steps in the ice to descend to the other side.  The sun is setting and their old and rotted sleeping bags offer no hope of getting them through the night on the mountain alive.  Looking down into the fog below them, Shackleton announces, “We have to slide.” 

The others counter.  “But we can’t see where we’re going, we could slide off the side of a crevasse and die!”

Shackleton replies that this may be true; if they slide, they may die, but if they do not slide, they certainly will die.  This they do, hooking themselves together bobsled style, without the bobsled.  They slide for more than a mile and crash into a soft snow bank below.

I was thinking about this some this morning in regard to my relationships with others.  I frequently am afraid to take action, to push the relationship, to “slide” because I am afraid of the consequences of doing that.  I might be rejected or offend someone.  As a result, I think I rob people of getting off the mountain where they may be dying and freezing in the cold, because I just move to slow.

God help me have the discernment and courage to know when to slide.