Vision
What can a person do, if only they have the vision to see?
Anything.
They can conquer nations and worlds, they can conquer their fear. They can explore and chart new worlds, they can switch careers. They can run for political office, they can give someone a second chance. And a third, a fourth, even a hundredth. They can invest millions of dollars in an unknown company, they can take a stranger out for dinner. They can forsake all – family, friends, occupation – in pursuit of a dream, a vision. They are willing to go through any amount of suffering, if only they might be closer to achieving their vision
‘This is the law of the Yukon, and ever she makes it plain:
“Send not your foolish and feeble; send me your strong and your sane –
Strong for the red rage of battle; sane for I harry them sore;
Send me men girt for the combat, men who are grit to the core;
Swift as the panther in triumph, fierce as the bear in defeat,
Sired of a bulldog parent, steeled in the furnace heat.
Send me the best of your breeding, lend me your chosen ones;
Them will I take to my bosom, them will I call my sons;
Them will I gild with my treasure, them will I glut with my meat;
…
Wild and wide are my borders, stern as death is my sway,
And I wait for the men who will win me – and I will not be won in a day;
And I will not be won by weaklings, subtle, suave and mild,
But by men with the hearts of Vikings, and the simple faith of a child;
Desperate, strong and resistless, unthrottled by fear or defeat,
Them will I gild with my treasure, them will I glut with my meat.’
…
-robert service
the law of the yukon
“The old prospectors had to believe that the gold was there. The journey to get it would be torture, but they chose the torture because of the hope. Jim [Elliot] believed there was treasure better than the Yukon’s gold, worth any risk, any sacrifice. I think I can picture him now, looking back from the Celestial City to the journey he had made, thinking the price, after all, didn’t amount to much. “
-elisabeth elliot
the path of loneliness
pg 106
“…Let us also lay aside every encumbrance, and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set out before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who, for the joy set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame,and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of GOD.”
-Romans 12:1-2