Throwing a Solid Rope to Future Generations

February 1, 2007
Michael Evans
  

Throwing a Solid Rope to Future Generations

In His excellent book Point Man, Steve Farrar shares a powerful illustration of the importance of fathers throwing a rope to future generations and not thinking so short term.

He uses climbing Mt. Everest as the example.   Like almost everyone who has ever lived, he also has never climbed the world’s largest mountain.  But plenty have written about it.

Apparently to climb Everest one begins with a 120 mile trek over a couple of weeks that enables the team to become acclimated to the altitude.

Any hike that begins at 13,000 feet and goes to 20,000 feet is tough.  Various camps are established and then the real ascent can begin.

In 1988, Jim Hayhurst, along with this twenty-year-old son, Jimmy, was part of the Canadian team that was making the ascent to Everest. 

As they were trekking across the Himalayas on the first stage of the climb, they had to ford one of the many rivers flowing down the lower part of Everest.  That’s when Jimmy slipped on a rock and fell into the fast-rushing river. 

He tumbled and twisted down the river like a rag doll.  He tried to grab on to a rock, but the river was simply moving too fast.  Suddenly, he stopped.  His backpack had caught on a rock in the middle of the river.  And just four feet away, the river tumbled over a cliff and dropped one thousand feet to the valley below.

Jim says of his son, “I couldn’t help him.  If I started toward him, I might dislodge another rock, I might change the direction or pressure of the water and he might slip off the rock that was holding him above the waterfall.”

“I had to stand, twenty feet away from my son, and watch him hang at the edge of a 1,000 foot cliff, and I couldn’t do a thing to help him.”

His son Jimmy slowly reached back, looking for a secure handhold.  His hand found only loose rocks, nothing that could support his weight. 

After minutes of grasping Jimmy finally found some rocks that didn’t shift when he grasped them.  He would be able to put his weight on them. 

Now he needed a way back upstream.  “Throw me a rope,” he called over his shoulder.  They did.  And by the very slim margin of forty-eight inches, he avoided falling a thousand feet to a sure and swift death.

Christian dads have a sacred responsibility to “throw a rope” to the second and third generations.  

Life is too short simply to do “fly by the seat” parenting/discipleship.  It’s not that there needs to be a 300 page manual we diligently work through with our children which encapsulates every shred of information we think is important to transmit to future generations.

What is important is that we live with a continual awareness that we are in fact passing our lives on to future generations.

Every time dad wrestles with his little girls or plays ball with his boys, something important is being transmitted.

Every moment spent in a posture of worship, prayer, praise, interacting over eternal truths or listening to the Word of God preached, is also transmitting information into the lives of impressionable souls.

Likewise, every time we trivialize eternal truths, bad-mouth the pastor behind his back, or yell at our children for no good reason (a good reason being that they are in imminent danger), we also pass on our own sinful baggage.

For what it’s worth, I read last week that if you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days, you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee. 

Not only is yelling an ineffective mode of heating coffee, it also tends to be an ineffective mode of parenting.

Someone once said that the best thing in the world that parents can do for their children is to love God with all their hearts.  Sounds like a solid and biblical aspiration to me!

The old Preacher in Ecclesiastes (3:1-8) reminds us that there is a time for every matter under heaven.  Our times are in God’s hands and we would do well to accept this fact.

There is “a time to keep, and a time to cast away…” (v.6b).

Most of us reading these words are still primarily in “a time to keep” with regard to our children. 

But there will come a day when they will probably be lovingly “cast away” to begin their own stories…some to marriage, some to educational opportunities and/or apprenticeships, still others to begin their own businesses.

The very thought of my children experiencing the inevitable pain and varying degrees of failure apart from their mother and I, is difficult to accept.

And yet we will be with them in the sense that, for good or ill, and probably both, they have seen us endure trials and have learned how to respond in adversity.

In Ecclesiastes 3:11-13, the Preacher writes that God “…has made everything beautiful in its time.  Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart…”

 “I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God’s gift to man.”

No scientific poll here but I suspect that most men don’t find great joy and satisfaction in their work.

Yet Ecclesiastes makes the application throughout this book that we should, in fact, be content with what God has ordained for our lives. 

We can be joyful, content, and do good as long as we live, even when doing menial, unsatisfying labor… but only with an eternal perspective.

This is not to say that a man should not have dreams and aspirations.  He should.  It seems to me, however, that God has a way of making our dreams and goals sprout most rapidly in the fertile soils of contentment.

Do not let the disappointments of life rob your children and future generations of a rock solid trust in God’s plan for your life.

We fallen beings tend to worry and fuss over all the wrong things.  In Matthew 6, Jesus promises to take care of His children. 

The best thing we can do is to “…seek first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness.”  Men who model this are throwing a rope to future generations that cannot fail.

Whatever we do, we dare not simply “assume” that this, and future generations, will turn out ok.  We need to set our faces like flint toward Jesus Christ and His Word, diligently pray, being constantly aware of the little eyes around us watching… always watching and listening.

We must be diligent in our commitment not to become complacent.

A little over ten years ago I clipped out an article from The Des Moines Register that provided a wonderful picture of the importance of keeping our heads in the game.

Shortly before his Aero-Peru Boeing 757 crashed into the Pacific Ocean in the fall of 1996, pilot Erik Schreiber complained that he had lost all of his navigation instruments.

“The computers have gone crazy,” he said.  Moments later, he said, “What’s happening?  What altitude am I at?  Why is my ground crash alarm on?  Am I over land or sea?”

Schreiber tried to make it back to the Lima airport in the early morning darkness, but his plane crashed into the ocean 28 minutes later killing the pilot and 69 others on board.

This was not the first time air traffic controllers had heard such chilling words.  Cockpit computers played a role in two other 757 crashes in the previous year, claiming 349 lives.

While investigators do not know what caused the trouble with either plane, there was a similar symptom: a breakdown in the plane’s revolutionary “glass cockpit.”

This is the area that houses the computerized panels, color TV screens that inform pilots about their plane’s course and mechanical functions.

I don’t know how things have changed since then, but even back then they of course had redundant electronics backed up with several tried and true manual instruments.

What investigators found out was that a sudden loss of the computerized images can stun pilots.

Some critics say that the very same electronics which allow pilots to plot their entire trip, including the landing, also can cause them to lower their guard.

A veteran 757/767 pilot said this, “What happens is guys get focused on the magic and forget the plane is still flying.”

He went on to describe that pilots are instructed to turn off the electronics when a problem arises, and simply use a compass and mechanical airspeed indicators. 

He said the switch is sometimes more difficult for the younger pilots to make.  “They forget that as long as the wings are there and there’s no problem with the power plant, you can still fly…You just have to make the mental shift.” (Des Moines Register Oct. 10, 1996).

Fellow fathers, let’s not be lulled into thinking that autopilot is going to get us or our families where we need to be. 

Rather, let’s commit ourselves once again to glorifying God and enjoying Him forever, even if the temporary is not always pleasant.

At the end of Ecclesiastes the Preacher summarizes it all in this way: “The end of the matter; all has been heard.  Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.”

And don’t ever forget that in doing so, you too are throwing a rope, not only to your own children, but also to the generations yet to be born.  Let the legacy begin!