IS IT EVEN POSSIBLE?
I love reading about BIG adventurers, one of my favorite stories comes from the early 1900’s.
Ernest Shackleton wanted to be the first person to cross the Antarctic, from ocean to ocean but his ship was captured in ice shortly after he and his team of sailors had begun. As the ship stood trapped, the ice began to crush it, and as the sailors looked on as their ship began to sink below the ice. For 5 months they camped on the ocean ice! When the ice broke up, they drug their lifeboats to the open water and for many days they searched for land. They finally landed on Elephant Island…a very uninhabitable place…hundreds of miles from any shipping lanes. Shackleton knew they wouldn’t be found so he himself set out, leaving most of his crew behind, to sail to one of the nearest ports. Days passed, they sailed through a hurricane, finally spotting land, then had to cross a huge mountain range (which had never been traversed at this point) because they had landed on the wrong side of the island. When he finally arrived, the FIRST thing he did was sail out to rescue his men. It took three separate attempts to actually reach them! One and a half years these sailors waited for rescue! Shackleton never gave up on reaching them!
The odds definitely were stacked against Shackleton and his men. As he attempted to keep his men safe and ultimately sought to rescue them Shackleton ran up against obstacle after obstacle. BUT he persevered!
Perseverance. It’s inspiring to read about people like Shackleton and many others who have overcome HUGE obstacles but never given up. LIVING in a situation that requires perseverance is an entirely different ball game. Choosing to give up your comforts, your opinions, your safety to save other people…that’s truly inspiring.
Jesus did that for us would we do the same for him!
At Alive we want to live like that…we dream big, ask big and take big risks…because our God is a BIG God! He risked it all, even though many rejected him, and many still do! We know that everyone spends eternity somewhere and we want to share Jesus with as many people as we can so we all can spend eternity in HEAVEN together!
We are committed to teaching and leading PEOPLE (of all ages) to a committed relationship with Jesus. We want to live and act in ways that draw people to God rather than push them away and HOW DO WE DO THAT??? Instead of looking at all our differences (age, race, sex, status, etc.) we focus on what we have in common! We all want to be LOVED, NEEDED, A PLACE WHERE WE FIT IN, WE all want to be recognized, and we all have a desire for God! SO even if it gets messy we try to build each other up, even if it’s hard, we try to teach biblical values to grow all ages of disciples for Jesus and, even though we fail sometimes, we try to live in harmony with each other so that our relationships and hang-ups DON’T keep people from experiencing Jesus.
It’s hard to live life according to Jesus example, but if we keep trying, keep persevering, keep seeking help to do it! We WILL SUCCEED, we WILL LEAD PEOPLE to relationship with Jesus and THAT is ALL THAT MATTERS!
God BLESS you as we enter 2021!