I'm probably the only guy in the world who stopped reading Alfred Lansing's Endurance with only two chapters to go. But with the discovery of the sunken ship recently, I knew I had to finish the book. I finished yesterday and yes, I got a bit emotional.
The vessel was discovered March 5, 2022, at a depth of 9,869 feet, almost 2 miles down.
The fact that the ship was named "Endurance"—and that she posed for so many amazing pictures—tells us that God not only gives symbols in special revelation, He also gives symbols in natural revelation. It would be hard to imagine a more suitable ship or a better name. But if we stop our analysis and simply conclude that the leader and crew were exemplars of endurance, we will miss two important things. Those two important things are:
Strategic risk-taking is necessary for victory.
Sometimes God expects us to kick down closed doors.
Strategic Risk-Taking
After abandoning the ship and sailing in the remaining small boats, the whole crew made it to Elephant Island. However, the island was uninhabited. They could have just waited there. Sure, it wasn't the best place, but they had enough guns and ammo to hunt seals with, and they had enough shelter to hunker down. Someone would eventually notice that they hadn't returned on schedule. But Shackleton decides to take a 22-foot sailboat across 720 nautical miles (829 statute miles) of stormy seas and aim for South Georgia where he knows there is a wailing station. He chooses five men to join him for the journey and leaves the rest of the crew on Elephant Island. Shackleton and his five men make it to South Georgia, barely of course.
After they land, Shackleton chooses two men, and the three of them set out on foot to cross a mountain range with glaciers. The whaling station is on the other side, and their boat is too damaged to sail around. No easy task. They didn’t even take sleeping bags (too heavy). At one point, the three men were descending down a glacier, cutting into the ice, with almost no climbing gear, and they realized that they were going too slow. Nightfall was coming and they would freeze to death unless they decreased in altitude. Shackleton comes up with an idea.
They're going to slide down.
Worsley locked his legs around Shackleton's waist and put his arms around Shackleton's neck. Crean did the same with Worsley. When they were ready, he kicked off.
They thought they might go off a cliff. Instead, they hit a snowbank and survived the night.
Two strategic risks: a 720 NM sailboat voyage, and a one-way mountain expedition with no good maps. What are we to make of these risk-accepting decisions? A skeptic might say that Shackleton had no choice but to take risks. Anyone would take risks given his conditions. But I don't think so. He wasn’t just reacting. He was out-front in his risk-taking. For example, Worsley and Crean were startled when Shackleton commanded they slide down the precipice.
There is something I see in Shackleton that I can't quite put into words. He had a framework of tactical decision-making that is undergirded with a resolute strategy. And I am convinced that a big part of that comes from the old way of thinking, that there is a consistency amidst entropy, and that following principles outweighs achieving results. There were thousands of little decisions that flowed naturally. And there was a steady purpose—survival (and perhaps duty and honor)—that guided the risk-taking. It was the keel to stabilize and the sail to move.
For the Christian, the keel and sail for risk-taking are the Bible and the promises it contains. Seedtime and harvest will not fail (Gen. 8:22); He will be with us in the journey (Jos. 1:9, Matt. 28:20); He will guide us (Ps. 119:105); He will provide for us (Matt. 6:28). He will bless in heaven even if it doesn't work out down here on earth (Dan. 3:18, Matt. 10:28). He will bless us even if we are persecuted (Matt. 5:10). Ultimate success is guaranteed. That is why Paul gives us the exhortation:
Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. (1 Corinthians 15:58)
Kicking Down Closed Doors
In 2008, the US Air Force hired the Rand Corporation to develop a methodology for dealing with risk at the strategic level. Here is the 300-page pdf if you are interested. (I don't blame you if you're not). The document basically says these two things:
Risk is concomitant with uncertainty, and uncertainty will certainly be present.
Good risk-taking considers long-term ramifications.
The diagram below comes from that Rand study. I know the diagram is unimpressive, but it shows something very important. Good decisions may have challenges. Notice the flow chart shows challenges that occur along the path to success.
Why do I bring this up? I bring this up because in our trying "figure out God's will" we sometimes wrongly interpret closed doors. We Calvinists, rather than following our heart (deceptive above all things), look to the Scripture, and we intently search to see God's hand of Providence. In other words, we want to quietly scoot away from anything subjective and grab onto something objective. And so, we look for “open doors” that God opens for us.
We want to see God's hand is in it. There is nothing wrong with that. But what happens sometimes is that we quit too early, especially on ventures we're not wholly committed to. We might be hair-triggered to call it off when a door is closed. We say things like, “If God closes one door, He'll open another.” But closed doors do not necessarily mean that God wants us to go a different direction. God’s desire may be for us to keep trying the same thing. As Westminster Shorter Catechism Question 7 says,
The decrees of God are, his eternal purpose, according to the counsel of his will, whereby, for his own glory, he hath foreordained whatsoever comes to pass.
God foreordains everything. He foreordained the fact that, after Shackleton reached civilization on the island of South Georgia, he would have to make four attempts, in four different ships, before he reached his men back on Elephant Island. It took over three months. How frustrating it must have been! The door to the castaways was sovereignly closed three times before it was opened and the men were rescued.
Sometimes, God wants us to kick down closed doors. Sometimes, He wants us to back up and go a different way to the same objective.
Executable
For the crew of the Endurance, it wasn't so much that they kept going forward. It was that they actively moved forward accepting the risk. And it wasn’t just that they kept moving forward. Going forward is easy. It was their willingness to go backward and re-attack that made this an enduring story.
I’ll believe it is very necessary today to take strategic risks. But let’s not be surprised if there isn’t a passageway with multiple wide-open doors in front of us. If there are open doors, praise God. But if not, there may be some faithful door-kicking ahead of us.
I raise my glass to Sir Shackleton and the whole crew.
Wonderful and timely article!