Ranui Sermons
Hear the word of the lord
Truth Over Comfort – Core Values Series Part 3
Pastor Lloyd Ashworth
The year was 1953 and while Everest was being climbed and conquered there was another mountain in the vicinity - K2 the world’s 2nd highest mountain, on which a drama was unfolding. A storm on the Abruzzi Ridge—25,000 feet up on the slopes of K2, climbers were sent scrambling to save the life of a fellow mountaineer. As they were lowering him down an icy slope. One of the climbers in this rescue, George Bell lost his footing and was roped to four others – all five men plunged down the face of the mountain towards their deaths. The quick thinking of another in the climbing party Peter Schoening jammed his ice axe behind a boulder and arrested the fall of the five men. This act called a ‘belay’ is now recognised as one of the most heroic acts in all of mountaineering history. Peter Schoening’s ice axe today is on display in the Bradford Washburn American Mountaineering Museum. Truth-telling, or telling yourself the truth is just like that ice axe – it can arrest your life from a spiralling dive on a slippery slope as you and I learn to speak the truth and make fixed points that won't move in our lives.