Second to suffer

Sir Edmund Hillary died January 11th of this year.

He was that crazy New Zealander who on May 29th, 1953, with his Sherpa guide Tenzing Norgay, conquered the mighty Mt. Everest, highest spot on earth at 29,035 feet.

It was not yet a well beaten path with broken-in way stations and rumors of a McDonalds (someone told me that but I don't believe it.). No high-tech gear, no mountain weather updates, no GPS satellite equipment, no advanced oxygen system, no personal porters to carry their supplies. (Hillary hauled 30 pounds on his back.)

The bee-keeper-become-mountaineer went places no foot of man had been before. He broke in a new path through the treacherous Khumbu Icefall. The trickiest part of the last bit was a 40-foot rock face, where he saw a way to utilize a crack between ice and a rock wall. The place was subsequently named "Hillary's Step."

You think it's hard climbing Everest now? Sure it is. But try being the first.

You think it stinks that you and I have to suffer? Sure it does. But like all the Hillary-imitators today, we have a pioneer. "It was fitting for him,…in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings" (Hebrews 2:10).

All we have to do, like migrating geese, is stay in His slipstream.