Remember the story about a hiker several years ago in Utah? He was a young fellow hiking alone in the rugged wilderness of Utah. At one point during his hike he needed to jump from one rock to another. As he jumped, his hand gently dragged across a rock above him that he hadn’t realized was a little unstable. As he jumped the rock shifted and trapped his hand between it and another rock. He spent the next six days frantically trying to free his hand from between the two rocks…to no avail.
Toward the end of the six days the young man began to smell the rotting flesh of his hand as it began to die. He had to get free from the rocks. He had one grisly option; he pulled out his pocket knife and began cutting off his hand.
It took awhile, but he finally succeeded. After the ordeal was over and reporters inquired about his experience, he said the most remarkable thing. The young man said that cutting off his hand was the most beautiful experience he would ever have in his life. Are you kidding? Why would he say that?
He realized his hand was threatening to kill him, so he had to learn to hate it in order to be able to cut it off and ultimately save his own life. His desire was to free himself completely; once he realized that was impossible, he shifted his desire from freeing himself to simply living. We must foster the same hatred toward our own desires when those desires are threatening our very lives.
God asks us to “put to death” whatever belongs to our earthly nature and instead set our hearts on things above (Col 3:1-5). Much the way the young man realized his hand was rotten and dying, and would certainly destroy the rest of him eventually, we must also learn to hate our sin and cut it away from our lives lest it destroy us.
One of the goals of counseling is to help people set their eyes “on things above.” To help hurting people see themselves through the lens of Christ, as those appearing in glory alongside Christ when he returns. It is this understanding that helps us put to death whatever belongs to our earthly nature, and like the young hiker view self-sacrifice as a beautiful experience.
Ken Morris
With many thanks to Bryan Chapell for connecting the story of the hiker to Colossians