The Need For Friends

Friday, February 17, 2006

My thoughts today are taken from Ken Gire’s excellent book, THE NORTH FACE OF GOD.

Ropes are one of a climber’s most essential pieces of equipment. Roped to a partner, a climber can stay the course if his eyes are blinded by the snow or his mind becomes disoriented from the altitude.

A climber named George Frey was climbing Kang Peak in the Himalayas in 1952. For some reason, he didn’t think he needed to be roped to his fellow climbers. He slipped and fell about a thousand feet until he landed on a flat place.

“The parallels in the spiritual realm are frightening. In a moment, we can lose our footing. A moral misstep when our marriage feels shaky, and it can lead to an affair. An emotional misstep when we’re going through depression, and it can lead to the loss of a job or the loss of a friendship. A spiritual misstep when we’re suffering, and it can lead to our falling away from God, falling so hard and so far that it might lead to paralysis of some of the feelings we once had for spiritual things, even to the death of those feelings. This is why the rope is so essential. If we are not roped to other caring Christians, it could result in a catastrophic fall like the one Frey experienced.”