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Last weekend, American rock climber Alex Honnold got in a little exercise.
In less than 90 minutes, he ascended Tawain’s Taipei 101 skyscraper aided only by his bare hands – no ropes or protective equipment of any kind.
The building, one of the world’s tallest, rises 1,667 feet and has 101 floors. Honnold, wearing a short-sleeved red shirt, used the small L-shaped outcroppings on its façade as footholds. From time to time, he was forced to clamber his way past large ornamental structures that protrude from the tower.
Netflix provided a live broadcast of Honnold’s feat, which allowed millions of people to watch the heart-stopping free solo climb from the comfort of their sofas. There was, of course, a ten-second delay – just in case he missed a step. After ascending the building’s spire – where the winds were gusting heartily – Honnold donned a harness and rappelled down the top of Taipei 101. Then he took the elevator to the lobby.
I want to make it perfectly clear that the next time I am in Taipei, I am able and willing to attempt Honnold’s daring elevator ride to the lobby.
“Alexander the Great” is the same guy who fulfilled a lifelong dream eight and a half years ago. He free-soloed the 3,000-foot face of Yosemite National Park’s granite monolith El Capitan.
Think of climbing, unaccompanied and with absolutely no room for error, a slick rock face as tall as the Empire State Building – and then add another Empire State Building on top of that, and for good measure an additional 50-story building.
When Honnold announced his intention to do what no one else in the world thought possible, his friends feared for his safety and his sanity.
Indeed, there appears to be something missing in Alex Honnold’s brain. You’re probably thinking, “Yeah, like maybe the whole thing.”
In 2016, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans revealed that his amygdala – the so-called “primitive” part of the brain that can register fear in less than a tenth of a second – barely indicated anxiety as he watched disturbing, get-me-out-of-here images.
Honnold admits that he feels anxious from time to time. But never for very long. He has coached himself not to freak out.
On June 3, 2017, Alex set out from the base of El Capitan. His climb was documented by cameras (some of them on drones). The footage ultimately became Free Solo, an Academy Award-winning documentary that creates far more anxiety in most viewers than was experienced by the guy pressing his fingers into tiny granite seams thousands of feet above the ground.
Honnold knew in advance that his do-or-die moment (literally) would come about two-thirds of the way up the face. Climbers call it the Boulder Problem. That’s a rather understated label – a bit like calling the loss of your entire net worth the Cash Flow Problem.
Even those with ropes and spikes hold their breath when they run out of footholds and handholds and have to shift their bodies about six feet to the left in order to find safety. Honnold spent months practicing a “karate kick” maneuver in which he extended his left leg as fully as possible to stick the horizontal landing.
Yes, he made it. But more than a few people, including members of his film crew, had to turn away at the crucial moment. It was too much tension to bear.
Honnold conquered El Capitan in a mind-blowing 3 hours and 56 minutes. It’s possible that no one will ever attempt such a climb again.
Even if you’re not a rock climber, you experience drama almost every day. It happens every time you face a difficult situation. Do you stare it down and decide to take action, or shrink away and hide? Either way, you’re developing a habit – one that will be reinforced every time you confront the next difficult situation.
It’s unlikely you’ll have to face the Boulder Problem today. But you may need to confront the In-Law Problem. Or the Self-Confidence Problem. Or the Workplace Ethics Problem.
If you push your fears aside and choose to take action instead of procrastinating, you’ll experience what author and pastor John Ortberg describes as a surge of joy. You did the hard thing. And now you can imagine doing it the next time. “But when you wimp out by refusing to take the difficult step or saying the hard word – you die a little.”
Whatever habits we develop will be intimately connected with our life with God.
All of us are called to develop habitual courage – choosing again and again and again to do the difficult thing, even if it’s an exceedingly small difficult thing.
Over the centuries, bad theology has generated plenty of heretics. But spiritual hesitancy has created many more. Such wavering tempts us to conclude that God probably isn’t big enough or strong enough or close enough or something-enough to get us out of whatever mess we’re facing.
A few years ago, Alex Honnold co-authored a book about his climbing exploits. It’s called Alone on the Wall. Aloneness is what defines free soloing.
But aloneness is the antithesis of the experience of every follower of Jesus.
No matter what you are facing today – whatever is calling you to be courageous – you are most certainly not alone.