A Dangerous Descent

In his best-selling book, Into Thin Air, John Krakauer tells the story of the ill-fated expedition to the summit of Mount Everest in 1996. In the book, Krakauer mentions a member of the expedition named Ms. Yasuko Namba, a 46-year-old Japanese FedEx employee with a passion for climbing. She was an accomplished climber, having reached the summits of seven of the largest mountains on the planet. The only one left for her to conquer the Big One—Everest.

                                                     

Krakauer wrote of her determination like so, “Yasuko was totally focused on the top. It was almost as if she was in a trance. She pushed extremely hard, jostling her way past everyone to the front of the line. She wanted to get to the top of Everest.” On May 11, 1996, she accomplished her life goal and became the oldest woman ever to reach Everest’s 29,092 ft. summit.

However, later that afternoon, Yasuko and several other climbers were caught in a terrible blizzard. And as the icy winds blew, Yasuko succumbed to the exhaustion of her climb and froze to death. According to Krakauer, Yasuko's fatal flaw was that she adopted the wrong goal. What she wanted the most was to stand at the top of the world. But this was the wrong goal, and a frequent and sometimes fatal mistake that climbers make. The goal of climbing should never be to get to the top of a summit—it should be to get back down to the bottom. Against incredible odds Yasuko made it to the top of the mountain. But as she poured out her energy to get to the top, she did not save enough strength to make it back down.

                                       Yasuko Namba pictured on the far right of the first row.

The tragic story of Yasuko Namba shows that a climber’s greatest danger occurs on the way down the mountain and not up, because after an ascent he/she is lulled into a false sense of security and accomplishment. With their guard down, climbers are more prone to make careless mistakes.

As I thought about this it occurred to me that this is the way temptation works as well. The moment of greatest danger is after a mountaintop experience. This explains the strategy of Satan to attack Jesus after basking in the glory of his baptism (Mark 1:9-13).  Jesus had just heard the Father declare, “This is my beloved Son in who I am well pleased,” and was anointed by the Holy Spirit. After this spiritual high, Jesus was tested beyond what we can imagine.

Weakened by intense hunger pangs, Christ squared off against Satan in a barren desert. Reminiscent of Adam’s temptation in Eden, Christ faced the full onslaught of the tempter, but did not succumb to the pressure. One thing is for sure, Satan doesn’t play fair. The Enemy accosted Jesus when He was most vulnerable and our adversary will do the same to us.   

How easy it is to sleep or become careless in our Christian walk. Temptation strikes when we neglect certain areas of our spiritual lives—such as prayer and Bible study—we become too self-sufficient and let our guard down, making us easy targets for Satan’s strike (1 Peter 5:8).

We need to be alert to the possibilities of an attack and pray to maintain vigilance. If we remain watchful and pray—for ourselves and for others—the Spirit will enable us to resist temptation. The best weapons we have against temptation are the Word of God and prayer (Eph. 6:17, Matt. 26:41). By staying vigilant, shoring up the weak places in our lives and not giving Satan a beachhead, we can resist the Devil and watch him flee (James 4:7). -DM