FRESH PERSPECTIVE
It’s amazing what a fresh perspective can do for our mental, emotional, and spiritual life. The wrong perspective, based on idealized dreams, distorted realities, misinformation, or wrong assumptions, robs us of life and joy. But a fresh, fact-based perspective can rejuvenate our spirit. It lifts us, energizes us, and gives birth to greater gratitude.
All of us, as we go about our daily lives immersed in our own world of circumstances and challenges, can get lost in the fog of life and the daily grind.
I’ve found one of the great secrets to persevering in my faith and resilience in life is to continue to refresh my perspectives about life.
Recently, I’ve been enjoying a series called The Last Alaskans. It’s a documentary series about the only couples, and several single men, still allowed to live in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge of Alaska, which is the size of South Carolina. Some are my age. They moved up there in the mid-70s, when I myself was thinking of moving to live that kind of lifestyle. I dreamed of building my own log cabin, living off the land in all the natural wilderness beauty, far away from people and the craziness of life. It once greatly appealed to me. Even now, it can still seem like such a wonderful, romanticized way of life.
As I watched this series, God used it to give me fresh, wonderful perspectives.
Here are some of the fresh, meaningful perspectives I gained:
Their work never stops. They’re working from before the sun comes up till it sets, almost every single day of the year. Everything they do is very hard work, all the time. I certainly found their work ethic uplifting and life affirming. I admire their ingenuity, resilience, and determination. A few also raised their families there, and the children certainly learned some solid life values.
It’s a very harsh, difficult, demanding way of life. When they get to be my age, it’s not possible. Then what do they do? How do they care for themselves? Where do they go to live?
They’re under the gun constantly to hunt, trap, fish, and find their own food, which takes a tremendous amount of effort and is very stressful. Once they actually find an animal to kill, such as a moose, it takes tremendous work to cut it all up, lug hundreds of pounds of meat by hand to their sled or boat, transport it back home, then hang it all up to smoke or store. It’s a herculean effort.
They have to haul their own water, every single day, all year long. Most often drilling through several feet of ice, dipping and filling their buckets, then hauling it all back to their cabin.
The need for cutting down trees and chopping firewood never stops.
Their cabins have no running water, and no electricity or gas.
It’s dark, with no sun for months every year. Much of the year is brutal cold, often 40 degrees below zero, while they work outside on their traplines.
For months of the year the mosquitoes are horrendous, unstoppable, and inescapable!
Bears often come and tear up the outside of their cabins, or can even break inside and destroy stuff.
The cabins are small, cramped, and often need repairs.
They have no indoor toilets.
They are constantly subject to the fury, whims, and brutal realities of nature.
Stuff breaks down, or you get sick, and you’re completely isolated—no roads or access to medical care, except at great expense to have a bush pilot fly out and get you. But, in the winter when he does, you have to walk or drive your snow machine to the frozen lake and create a packed snow runway for the plane to land on, by yourself.
When I compare my home and situation to these folks I feel incredibly blessed, so well provided for, and immensely grateful to God. I have heat the moment I need it. Cool air the moment I need it. Running water the moment I need it. Hot water the moment I need it. Indoor functioning toilets. Refrigerated food, kept fresh and well preserved. One to three miles away I have access to all the food or supplies I need to sustain my life.
But this fresh perspective hit me the strongest—their entire life is about living for and taking care of themself. Everything they do is for themself. They have no time for anything else. In 1975, God saved me from moving to live that kind of life out in the mountain wilderness, taking care of just me, me, me. Instead, God called me to a lifetime of service to Jesus Christ and to other people, which actually is the genuine path to real and abundant life. No matter how wonderful and glamorous this show tries to make living life isolated out in the Alaskan wilderness beauty, the reality is—it’s not as it appears. For you’ll have wasted your whole life living for yourself.
It made me so grateful to God to have had the chance to live for His eternal purposes, to lay up my treasures in heaven, and in the service of others. What a privilege! Yes, it’s been filled with its own extreme difficulties. Many hardships, tribulations, and a whole lot of hard work. But it all mattered for eternity. I have experienced many amazing God stories and wonderful joys. It has truly been a very blessed life.
Jesus said—Whoever keeps his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find true life. How will you benefit if you gain the whole world, but lose your life in the process?
Helping you become a Strong Disciple,
Because of Jesus,
Pastor Mark Darling
