Originally posted June 29, 2015.
At the climax of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Indiana (played by Harrison Ford) and his father (played by Sean Connery) have reached the ancient hiding place of the Holy Grail just in time to be captured by the Nazis. In order to motivate Indy to retrieve the Grail (which bestows mystical healing powers to those who drink of it), the head Nazi baddie shoots Indy’s father. Realizing he has no choice but to brave the three devices of lethal cunning that bar the way to the Grail, Indiana Jones sets out into the booby-trapped temple. He gets through the first two challenges and reaches the third. It appears to be an impassable chasm, yawning menacingly in Indy’s path.
“Impossible,” he mutters to himself. “Nobody can jump this.”
He recalls the cryptic instructions his father gave him for passing this obstacle: Only with a leap from the lion’s head (which is carved near the brink where he stands) can he prove his worth.
Indiana gazes uncertainly at the gap between himself and the far end of the chasm. Outside of the temple, his wounded father gasps with what may well be his dying breath, “You must believe, boy. You must believe."
Indy can shy away from the challenge, but that will cost him dearly. Only with the Grail’s power can he save his father, and only by taking a literal leap of faith can he advance.
How many of us have been at this same spot? How many of us have faced our own bottomless chasms, too terrified of failure to move forward? I know I certainly have. For years, I was poised on the edge of that abyss, doubting that God would sustain me. Specifically, I showed a distinct lack of faith that my Heavenly Father would one day allow me to find my eternal companion.
This perhaps isn’t the time and place to fully expound upon the length and breadth of my insecurities, but let’s just say that I’ve had my share of doubts that I’d ever find my mate. At the beginning, when the first of my friends started to get married, it started as a niggling little fear in the back of my mind, a whispered uncertainty that I would ever be as happy as the smiling couples whom I watched join their lives together in blissful matrimony. Later, it became a dull buzz of fear, an ambient clamor I couldn’t quite block out as more and more friends left me behind in their unhindered quests to get married. Eventually it amplified into a full-blown roar of panic in my late twenties when I realized I was among the last of any of my groups of friends to find The One.
The doubts came. Through His authorized servants, God made the promise that I would find the right person someday, and yet I couldn't believe. God meant for some people to be happy, I reasoned, but not everyone. Some people would have the chance to meet their special someone, but that was a treat reserved only for the good-looking or the lucky. And I believed myself to be neither of those things. I longed to meet Her, The One, that special girl who would make all of my doubts flee. I know what it is to feel like half a song, a lonely melody that waiting in vain for a harmony to complete it. I know what it is to desperately miss someone I’ve never met, like being homesick for a place I’ve never been. For years, I sank into a morass of despair, watching my options shrink and my prospects dry up. My friends all got married and had kids. All the girls I’d liked and pursued found guys way better looking than me and got busy churning out children.
I lingered for years on the edge of my own personal chasm. As the voices of people I loved quietly reassured me, “You must believe, boy,” I ignored them, unable to move forward. I saw only the depth of the gulf before me.
And so I stood there where Indiana Jones stood, facing the same choice that lay before him: show a little faith, or never move forward.
Indiana, naturally, makes the right choice. With the admonition of his dying father ringing in his ears, Indy steps forward into nothingness . . .
. . . and alights on a hidden bridge, perfectly sculpted and fashioned to blend in with the rock of the chasm. John Williams' epic score swells, and Indiana, his faith rewarded, walks across the bridge to the final chamber where the Holy Grail awaits.
There’s still another test ahead of him—he has to choose the real Grail from amid a host of impostors—but he has made substantial progress, putting his faith into action and seeing the rewards thereof. (Does he find the Grail and save his father? If you haven't seen the movie, I won't spoil the ending, but I find your lack of pop culture disturbing.)
As for me, there wasn’t ever a certain moment when everything changed, when suddenly the light flooded my mind and thrust the right path into sharp relief. It came slowly over the last year, when at some point I reached my darkest extremity and realized there was no way to go but up. Somewhere along the path, I realized that if I didn’t step blindly forward and take the leap from the lion’s head, if I never showed my faith by cheerfully going on with my life, I would simply never go forward. That was the beginning, the seed of faith from which sprang the kernel of hope.
From there came the moments when my faith was rewarded, when I stepped forward into nothingness and found myself supported by unseen forces. They were small things, like the day when I felt an unnatural surge of happiness for no reason, or the day when I came home frustrated and then found myself supported by kind, loving friends.
That’s not to say I never have a bad day or a moment of weakness when I wonder why God is taking His sweet time leading me to my wife. I’d like to end this post by telling of the miraculous way in which I found my wife after showing my faith, the way in which I finally drank from my personal Holy Grail. But of course that’s not the end. No, there’s still more ahead for me, more trials, just like there was for Indiana Jones. But unlike before, I really do believe that this will end well.
Yes, I still have my bad days, those times when I flirt idly with despair, but I can pull myself out because I trust God to lead me in the right direction. If you asked me for that assurance a year ago, I couldn’t have given it to you. But now I can say with a hard-won certainty that there’s someone for me, because I have received that promise from my Heavenly Father.
I may not meet her soon, but most of the time I trust that God does have someone wonderful in store for me. I’m okay with a little waiting, because I know she is out there, probably navigating her own treacherous obstacle course in her quest to find me. And if she doesn’t mind gratuitous Indiana Jones references, I’m sure we’ll get along just fine.
And so on those hard days when I wonder what a guy like me has to do to get a girl, I remember the timeless advice from the lips of Sean Connery:
You must believe, boy.
Note from three years later: I met her. :)
