Lewis and Clark, Aragorn, and Following Christ

I recently read a book on Lewis, of Lewis and Clark fame (no, this is not an April Fool's Joke , I actually did read the book). It was interesting because I was very ignorant about their journey and the life of Lewis, even though I grew up in the NW not terribly far from where they wintered. The book included many fun stories, such as their encounters with bears who refused to die even when shot multiple times, the great trust that the men had in Lewis, and the incredible physical work it took them to get to the West Coast and back. I was saddened by the large amount of STD's that the men picked up along the way from sleeping with the Indian women: their husbands were happy to have the wives sleep with the white men because they thought they would then get the hunting power of the white man. The saddest part of the book for me was the end: Lewis ends up ruining his life and commiting suicide (apparently, although some argue he was murdered). This man who did a tremendous job on the highly dangerous multi-year trek across the country can't handle life when he gets back.

This past week I also watched the Lord of the Rings trilogy again, and as I watched Theoden and Aragorn make their speeches to the troops before battle in the third movie (when Rohan arrives to help Gondor and when the allied troops are at the gate of Mordor), I thought to myself how great it would be to have the charisma displayed by these two men to help others follow Christ more effectively. But the more I thought about this, and about Lewis' life, the more I realized how unlike these two events the Christian life is. The Christian life is a lifelong quest, not one that lasts a few years until one gets back to real life. This shows just how difficult the Christian life can be: the goal of this life is not to make it back to civilization or to defeat a single enemy, but it is to subject the rest of our entire life to service with God. As it has often been quipped, the problem with a living sacrifice (Romans 12:2) is that it keeps on crawling off the altar. As Christians, we need the endurance not just to last for awhile, but to keep on serving Christ, an endurance that is impossible without the work of the Spirit in us and through other believers.  

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