Up For The Challenge
Taking an icy dip!
One of my favorite podcasts is the video podcast from TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design). I find the different topics and ideas presented to be incredibly stimulating, and I love learning how to be a better presenter from some of the incredible communicators that show up at the TED conference.
This past weekend I was watching some of the latest postings to the podcast and came across a fascinating talk by a guy named Lewis Pugh. Lewis Pugh had a concern. He watched as the polar ice cap kept creeping back and how the ice at the North Pole kept getting thinner and thinner and he decided to do something about it. He wanted to do something that would grab the business and political leaders of the world by their “collars and shake them” to make them aware of the problem of climate change. So, what Lewis did is arrange to take a little dip, only he decided that he would take his short, twenty minute, one kilometer swim at the North Pole. He put a team together, did the training necessary and headed up to the North Pole for his swim. Now, in case you don’t realize what a feat this is, the water temperature was just 3 degrees Celsius, and it took him four months to regain the feeling in his hands, and he completed the swim in an area inhabited by polar bears. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think I’d like to have one of those mistake me for a seal while I was swimming!
What struck me about this story was not just how incredibly committed Lewis was, or how crazy he was, or how much we need to take seriously the whole issue of climate change. What struck me was that Lewis was literally willing to risk his life for this cause that he believes in. I wonder what the church would look like if we were willing to make the same kinds of sacrifices and take the same kinds of risks? Sometimes I think that we’ve gotten awfully complacent and content in our safe little secure lives here in North America and have come to see this as what should be considered the norm for us.
There’s this list of some of the things the apostle Paul had to endure in the book of 2 Corinthians, chapter 11 that almost makes me chuckle sometimes. Paul rattles off this list of all the things that have happened to him because of this passion and belief in the cause of Jesus. He’s been in prison, flogged, exposed to death, received forty lashes minus one five times, beaten with rods three times, stoned three times, shipwrecked on open sea for a day and half, and on and on the list goes. I wonder what Paul would think about the things we call sacrifices now? We give an evening a week to help with a program at our local church and we call it a sacrifice. The average tithe to churches is somewhere around the 2% mark and we call it a sacrifice. We’re even afraid to talk to our friends and neighbors about faith because they might laugh at us. Imagine what church would look like if we were willing to make the same kind of sacrifice as Paul or as Lewis Hugh?
Just a thought…
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I like what you wrote about the guy swimming at the North Pole and its connection to what we are and should be willing to sacrifice for the sake of Jesus Christ. The fellow that spoke at The Bridge here in Abbotsford this past Sunday talked about the churches where people go cruising at – just kind of sitting in the stands. It has me thinking that even at this stage in my life, God wants me in action, not cruising.
Great point… On the other side of the coin, though, we need to be careful that we don’t use the sacrifices made to create a system of one Christian being better than another because of how much they “sacrifice.” Sacrifice also is more than just how much time someone gives to church programs or how much they contribute to a church budget. I know that’s not what you mean by this post. Western Christianity has become too comfortable. I am concerned though at a growing trend to hold up people who “sacrifice a lot” that they become celebrities and the “ideal” of what we should be. We have to remember, too, that while we are called to sacrifice, what God wants even more is our hearts and our devotion to him. Sacrifice should arise from our love of God and not as a way to avail ourselves of guilt or to reach some sort of pinnacle.