All Good Things Find an End

Journal 2005 10 06

A cool easterly wind blows this morning. Work on the canoes continues. Brands were burned into their horses yesterday. A cache for saddles, horse gear and lead and powder is dug, filled and sealed for retrieval upon their return.

The horses were entrusted to the care of tribal members who receive a knife and other items for their work and promise to care for the thirty-eight horses. All the canoes are completed by evening and will be tested in the morning. Five canoes to carry thirty-one members of the Corps of Discovery, two Nez Perce chiefs and Old Toby and his son. Thirty-five people and all their gear in five canoes. That is seven people per canoe! Without any gear aboard! Up the Missouri men would walk and pull the rivercraft slowly against the current. There would be little walking on this race to the Pacific. Downstream travel will move at a speed unrivaled by any other means of transportation except falling off a high cliff! Everyone would ride in a canoe built by men extremely hindered by the effects of the food they were eating.

Clark records that last night and this night the boiled roots “filled us so full of wind, that we were scercely able to Breathe all night felt the ill effects of it.” (Can’t help but picture this record as inspiring the famous campfire scene in the Mel Brooks movie “Blazing Saddles!”) The “we” mentioned is William Clark and Meriwether Lewis whose brief recovery of yesterday has slipped away. The other men cannot feel much better and yet in two days they brand all thirty-eight horses, dig and fill the cache and complete the canoes. Amazing!

Proceeding on, pressing on in spite of hardship and illness. Somewhere in their minds the men must realize by now that they need to move on and separate themselves from the food which is so readily available but so disagreeable. No mention is made of it, but the men must have anticipated arriving in a river valley where deer and elk once again abounded. It was time to go. Except the Captains are as sick as anyone and Lewis is pretty much unable to do anything.

A time exists in every journey when more preparation and rest will not result in more mission. In this example the result is more gas! There comes a time when we call something complete and need to move on. That time had arrived for the men of the Corps of Discovery. And begs the question of us today. Are we sick and full of wind, unable to perform our duties in spite of what appears to be adequate provision, supply and hospitality? The Kingdom of God requires advance. If you feel like you are wandering, unsure of where to go, you may just be in the “deserts of Egypt” marking off time. If you are wandering, stop. Call upon His Name and He will rescue you and bring You to the place you need to be. Then He will equip you and send you on a very specific mission that requires continual advance toward a goal and toward His eternal dwelling place, Zion in Heaven. God becomes your reference point and all your movement is measured against His eternal Rock, His eternal marker. Call out to Him today and find His benchmark.