Lifeboat drill

I love stories of survival—the truer the better. The courage and innovation that follows desperation is the best kind of drama. “The Long Walk,” which was made into a pretty good movie, is the tale of prisoners who escaped the Soviet Gulag during World War II. Those who survived a trek through Siberia in winter and then the Gobi Desert walked over the Himalayas to India, over 4,000 miles. Although some doubt the truth of the story, the story and similar feats of determination capture the imagination. 

Perhaps you’ll wonder, as I do, if you’d be up to the challenge. I don’t want to be stranded at sea in a small raft or forced to hack off my own arm to save my life, but could I do what another man has done if the direst need arose? I’m coming to the conviction that maybe I don’t see reality very clearly when I assume that no such challenge faces me, or us.

I’ve nearly completed a year-long teaching series in the book of Hebrews. My class doesn’t believe me when I tell them I’ve only skimmed the surface but nevertheless a theme in the book has captured my attention, the need for superhuman endurance in our Christian walk. If all Scripture is profitable “for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness,” then it applies to us—safe, well-fed, and at liberty in our day. I can see how the message of Hebrews would be encouraging to those harried Christians in atheistic or demonic nations without religious liberty, but it must be to me also. My problem is the delusion of security and distance from the worst kind of spiritual warfare. 
This struck me when I was studying 13:1-3, a passage on brotherly love. Unity is big in the New Testament; unifying love is the “new commandment” of John 13. Why do we have such a hard time with this? Maybe it’s this delusion of safety, this lack of intensity in our daily walk. 

Think, for example, of four guys in a lifeboat. They have various wounds, limited supplies, individual skills and weaknesses. The boat is surrounded by sharks, of course, and they have no idea when they’ll be rescued. Oh yeah, the raft is leaking just a bit so that one guy has to be on the pump all the time just to keep them out of the water. Do they need each other? They do if anyone is going to sleep, fish, fend off sharks, man the pump, and tend the wounds. Four is maybe not enough. But say one of these guys is a bit less mature, a whiner, annoying to the max. Do they need him anyway? Again, yes. He’s one of only four and while someone might need to keep him on task, he’s a pair of hands, eyes to watch the horizon for rescue. During their ordeal and after their rescue, the survivors are bonded for life. They’ve shared something no one else who’s never been there can quite get. These four men are among a small group of humans who have come back from the despair of hopelessness, even death. 

Deluded Christianity acts as though there are no sharks, only those I like can be in the raft, and the water in the raft is not rising. I, and maybe one buddy, we think, can do it all without the annoyance of people I didn’t pick. 

We are just wrong. Yes, we should love one another because Jesus told us to. But we also need one another—the gifts, the experience, the companionship of those around us that God picked for our mutual building up. The danger of lone-wolf or my-preference Christianity is a real danger because God does not want and never intended for us to be that way. It doesn’t work; we’ll starve, drown or the sharks will get us. 

Satan is a shark. In 1 Peter 5:8 he’s described as a lion that seeks to devour us. Yes, it is the power of God that sustains us and protects us from the lion but God’s story all through is about people who live in community under God’s provision and protection, and discipline. We are supposed to intercede on behalf of one another so that the tempter doesn’t cull us out of the herd. We are supposed to encourage one another so that we don’t listen to that voice that whispers “give up.” The temptations themselves can also be sharks. Living in a community of diverse and interdependent believers can help us avoid temptation and sin. 

To spiritually drown is similar to the description of the seed that fell among the thorns in Matthew 13. Life, in glory and horror, can be overwhelming. Hebrews 12 begins with an exhortation to not lose heart but instead consider the faith of those who have gone before us. Our ultimate example is Christ, who “endured such hostility against himself, so that you won’t grow weary and lose heart.” Notice that our endurance is buoyed by the godly example of others—themselves witnesses of the sustaining power of God. Good survival stories have a crucial moment where the hero or heroes continue to grind forward when anyone hearing the story would say to himself, “How can a person do that?” The first readers of Hebrews were at that crucial point. I think many of our fellows might be close and not recognize it because we are deluded by relative comfort. What a tragedy to just give in to the peaceful tug of gravity, to quietly drift into the depths.  

A Christian alone is far more likely to spiritually starve or grow cold than he would be in fellowship with others, to carry my metaphor a bit farther. Paul’s description of the body of Christ compares us with individual members of a human body. It takes far more than one bodily organ or member to get nutrition. Right now, you are able to think of the name of a person who is growing cold in his faith so that it is unclear that he is saved at all. You are thinking of someone who has decided to go it alone for one reason or another. His plan is not working. The urgency of living in fellowship with other believers is real whether everyone discerns it or not. We have both bad and good examples to instruct us. 

If we recognize the urgency of our situation, I think we’ll live our days together in a different way. 

Perhaps we’ll consider ourselves more dependent on what God provides through the Christians around us. This requires a sort of relationship deeper than what’s possible to develop during the welcome song. 

On the other hand, we might recognize the gifts and strengths that we carry in ourselves for the building up of others. God gives us things, talents, money, time, etc., that he intends for us to deliver to others lest they become cold or despairing or prey. 

I think we could see the “normal” events of our lives in a different way—full of opportunities spiced with grave danger. Our rescue is sure if we endure to the end. With that understanding, every shark, every annoying habit of our ragged crew, every privation becomes a way God prepares us (and others) for eternity. Every new shark is food, every annoying habit is a view into the souls of our companions, everything we lack is either unnecessary or on its way. 

And those things that are little in the scope of eternity will become smaller to us. Our differences within the body of Christ are greatly exaggerated when we don’t see the spiritual urgency of this present moment. The differences disappear while we’re in the fray. I think we are meant to be in that struggle every day, a runner continuing through the pain, a soldier standing his watch, pilgrims staring down the lion in our path. 

Our churches sometimes seem like a gaggle of folks standing around waiting for something important to happen. In this spiritually torpid culture, I constantly need the reminder that important things are happening now.