Perseverance

In 1914, the explorer Earnest Shackleton set out on his ship, the Endurance, with a crew of twenty-seven men, headed for the bottom of the earth. Their mission was to be the first to cross the Antarctic continent on land. However, their ship became trapped, crushed in polar pack ice, leaving them stranded.

Though Shackleton and his crew didn’t achieve their goal, the real story of this expedition is their survival after the loss of their ship. The crew was forced to abandon the Endurance, salvaging only the supplies they could carry. For two years, the men overcame numerous life-threatening challenges before facilitating their own rescue. Remarkably—some might say miraculously—not a single life was lost. The crew’s survival was undeniably due to Shackleton’s extraordinary leadership and ability to keep his men organized, motivated, and encouraged.

When the men returned home to England in 1916, despite the expedition’s failure to achieve its goal, all but four of the crew were awarded their country’s Polar Medal in recognition of their heroic survival.

The four who were not awarded the Polar Medal were not recognized at the insistence of Earnest Shackleton who said they had fallen short in the fulfillment of their responsibilities. How sad to have survived such an ordeal and fail to be rewarded!

Though I am uncertain of the religious affiliations of Shackleton’s men, I know they exhibited a principle that is essential to our journey as Christians and the one we will be exploring this week—perseverance. They did not quit or give up on their faith in their leader, despite extreme hardships, or they would not have survived. We can be encouraged and challenged by their example and by today’s reading to persevere in our own lives.