When someone asked the famous mountaineer George Mallory why he wanted to climb Mount Everest, he simply stated: “Because it is there.”
Didn’t he know that staying home would have been a whole lot safer? Didn’t he care about the dangers, the hardships, and the risks?
Sadly, a mysterious accident befell Mallory and his climbing companion in 1924 while attempting to reach the summit of Everest; his body was only found 75 years later. He had literally died trying. Still, I have an inkling that if he’d had the chance, Mallory would have tried again. Vision is never risk-free, but it carries its own rewards.
Most of us wouldn’t mind standing on top of a mountain, but it’s the journey to the top that worries us, the sacrifices involved that make us waver. On the other hand, to those who have vision, even the journey is exciting, part of the reward. Only those who conquer mountains will see the world in a new perspective. As amateur mountaineer Henry Edmundson said, “There is the sheer beauty of the landscape that you never saw before, the mystery of what’s beyond the next bluff, the muffled roar of a torrent a thousand meters below, the stillness of the late afternoon and the intense companionship when you share this dream with others.”
I can already see some mountains on the horizon of this year that will need to be conquered. I want to climb them with faith and vision, holding on to the hands of my gentle Shepherd who walks with me and has promised He will never leave me, not even for a single day.
Let this year be a year of vision!