Shackleton's Relentless Return

In August 1916, Ernest Shackleton stood on the deck of the Chilean steamer Yelcho, scanning the frozen horizon of Elephant Island through binoculars. This was his fourth attempt in three months to reach the twenty-two men he had left stranded on that desolate spit of rock and ice. Three previous rescue ships had been turned back by pack ice. Any reasonable man would have accepted the loss. The odds were impossible. The men were likely already dead.

But Shackleton was not a reasonable man when it came to his crew.

When the Yelcho finally broke through and the gaunt, blackened faces of his men appeared on the shore, Shackleton counted them one by one. Every single man alive. He reportedly shouted to Frank Wild, his second-in-command, "Are you all well?" When Wild confirmed all twenty-two were accounted for, Shackleton wept.

He had crossed eight hundred miles of the most savage ocean on earth in a tiny lifeboat, scaled uncharted mountains in South Georgia, and endured four failed rescue attempts — all because he refused to abandon even one man.

This is the heart Jesus reveals in Luke 15. The shepherd does not glance toward the hills and sigh. He leaves the ninety-nine. He climbs. He searches. He will not stop until the lost one is found and carried home on his shoulders. And when that moment comes, heaven itself erupts in joy — because our God is not a reasonable God when it comes to His children. He is relentless.