Mr. Magoo’s Wild Ride

Mr. Magoo’s extreme hike can provide lessons for our spiritual trek of faith.

In the spring of 2007, a 37-year-old hiker who goes by the trail name “Mr. Magoo,” after the cartoon character, decided he would be the first person to hike the Continental Divide Trail the entire 3,100 miles from the Mexican border, through hundreds of miles of desert, over the Colorado mountains, through Glacier National Park, to the Canadian border—and back!

He knew the out-and-back trip would mean hiking over those Colorado mountains through dangerous winter conditions, which is probably why nobody had done it before. He was ready for that. What Mr. Magoo did not count on was that 25 days after he left the Mexican border, a 28-year-old hiker called “the Onion” would leave from the same place with the intention of beating Mr. Magoo. Twenty-five days sounds like a huge head start, but the Onion was younger and faster, and 6,200 miles gave him plenty of time to catch up.

Now it was no longer just a hike. It was a race.

At one point, knowing he needed to make up some time, he reached the top of a snow- and ice-covered 13,000-foot mountain in Colorado, sat down, and let go, taking a wild ride literally on the seat of his pants all the way down the icy slope. On his way down, Mr. Magoo somehow managed to miss every tree and cliff and made it to the bottom sore but unharmed, saving a few precious days of climbing down that mountain.

But when Mr. Magoo stood up, he found that his pack had come open and all his trail maps had blown away.

Pretty stupid, huh? We could draw the lesson that lack of wisdom can bring us all kinds of problems.

But for the sake of this blog post, imagine that, as scary and crazy as sliding down the mountain was, it could represent some of the scary things God asks us to do. Faith sometimes means doing something that may seem unwise from this world’s point of view, but doing it knowing that we’re called to obey God’s instructions and to let God worry about the consequences of our obedience.

Faith in action

Faith doesn’t stop with an abstract, intellectual belief. Faith requires action.

The book of James tells us that faith without works is dead (2:26). Faith isn’t just believing God’s promises. Faith is acting in reliance on those promises.

Faith isn’t just knowing that you need to remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Faith is giving up a job that requires you to break the Sabbath, even when you have a mortgage to pay and a family to feed.

Faith isn’t standing on the summit of a mountain and thinking, “I could slide down this thing.” Faith is sitting down and sliding.

Faith is action.

But faith isn’t just any action. Faith is acting on God’s clear instructions even when the immediate results are unclear.

Impossible walls

Let’s look at an example of people who acted in faith, even when God’s instructions may not have seemed like the best idea at the time.

The walled city of Jericho had closed its gates and prepared for an Israelite siege. God told Joshua to march around the city once a day for six days and seven times on the seventh day. Then the priests were to blow trumpets and the people to shout “with a great shout; then the wall of the city will fall down flat” (Joshua 6:5).

Now, it didn’t take a military expert to see that this wasn’t a normal way to besiege a city. Walking and shouting had never knocked down a wall before.

But Joshua took that leap of faith, and the walls came down.

Joshua let go and trusted God to engineer the victory. As it turns out, obedience to God is the best strategy, military or otherwise.

Back to Mr. Magoo

We left Mr. Magoo at the bottom of a mountain in Colorado with no trail maps and only a state road map. With his compass and a little bit of guesswork, he managed to make it to a small town where he could resupply and purchase some new maps. Thanks in part to his daredevil slide down the mountain, Mr. Magoo eventually arrived at the Mexican border just a couple days before the Onion, winning the race and solidifying his place in history.

We’re in a race too, aren’t we? The Bible tells us to “run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith” (Hebrews 12:1-2).

When necessary, we need to be prepared to take a leap of faith—one that is wise biblically, even if it seems foolish physically. Sometimes we need to let go of our worries and trust and obey God no matter what, to metaphorically slide down an icy mountain with nothing to keep us from sliding over a cliff except God’s promise that He’ll protect us.

But when you let go, don’t make the mistake Mr. Magoo made. Hold on to your map!

Zachary Lawton is a member of the Church of God, a Worldwide Association, congregation in Tallahassee, Florida.