A Quarrel Between Friends

Balquhidder, Scotland

I close my British Novel to 1900 course with Kidnapped, an adventure tale by Robert Louis Stevenson. The two main characters are David Balfour, an orphan on the cusp of manhood from the Scottish Lowlands, and Alan Breck Stewart, a Jacobite rebel from the Highlands. You might call their friendship a "bromance" or maybe a mentoring relationship, but, either way, they are an "odd couple," opposite in politics and separated by age. It's inevitable that they clash, the ultimate conflict occurring as they scramble through the heather, away from the English troops.

Alan, in a moment of weakness, has taken David's money and lost it gambling, and so we pick up with David sulkily giving Alan the silent treatment. "I was of an unforgiving disposition from my birth. . . ," says the narrating voice of David, "now incensed both against my companion and myself. For the best part of two days, he was unweariedly kind; silent indeed, but always ready to help, and always hoping . . . that my displeasure would blow by. For the same length of time, I stayed in myself, nursing my anger, roughly refusing his services, and passing him over with my eyes as if he had been a bush or a stone" (chap. 24).

Stevenson, writing in the late 1800s, labels each man's reactions as what they are: sin. "I, angry and proud," states David-as-narrator, "and drawing what strength I had from these two violent and sinful feelings: Alan angry and ashamed, ashamed that he had lost my money, angry that I had taken it so ill." Stevenson identifies here the power of sinful thoughts and feelings. Davie for a while feeds off of his resentment and gains the strength from those negative emotions to keep on the journey.

Ultimately that bitterness eats him up inside, "but I was too miserable to repent," he comments. "So I went like a sick, silly and bad-hearted schoolboy, feeding my anger against a fellow-man, when I would have been better on my knees, crying on God for mercy" (chap. 24). David's physical illness has been coming on for some time, but it seems likely that his spiritual sickness adds to that physical ailment, resulting in Davie's complete breakdown in the chapter.

Yet when Davie has worked the tension up and tried to provoke a swordfight to finally "have it out" with Alan, it is Alan's laying down of his sword that prompts David's repentance and the men's reconciliation through forgiveness:

"At this the last of my anger oozed all out of me; and I found myself only sick, and sorry, and blank, and wondering at myself. I would have given the world to take back what I had said; but a word once spoken, who can recapture it? I minded me of all Alan's kindness and courage in the past, how he had helped and cheered and borne with me in our evil days; and then recalled my own insults, and saw that I had lost forever that doughty friend" (chap. 24).

David echoes Scripture in his realization of the truth that a word spoken cannot be taken back, and, with his realization of sin, his spiritual sickness clears away, opening his eyes to several truths: he has sinned against his friend, gratitude for Alan's help and friendship in the past would have worked as a preventative measure against sin, and the consequences of his sin might be losing his friend forever.

This chapter from Stevenson's Kidnapped illustrates biblical truth about giving way to sin and how it destroys relationships. It also shows how believers, through repentance, humility, and compassion, can restore relationships. Witness the Apostle Paul's instructions to Christians in Ephesians 4:25-32:

"let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor. . . . Be angry and do not sin. . . . Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up. . . . Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you" (ESV).

Finally, Davie puts his pride away, and as he humbles himself before Alan, the physical illness takes over, arousing Alan's compassion. They both ask for forgiveness, to which David responds, "We're neither one of us to mend the other--that's the truth. We must just bear and forbear" (chap. 24). They have been reconciled to each other, but recognize that each man is a sinner. They will doubtless sin against each other again and must learn to bear with each other. (Galations 6:1-5 is a good passage here.)

Good lessons to apply to any relationship we have with people, especially other Christians, in this life. Novels like Stevenson's are a reason why we should do more reading of the old books.

In the Desert (GH #28)

I do not understand the fascination with the desert. It’s all around me in Southern California: both the desert itself and people’s fascination with it. The desert to me has always seemed dirty—everything tinged with the same color of dust. My readers, including my dear brother, who actually prefers to go off driving into the New Mexico desert, are yelling at their screens right now: the desert is not monotone, it’s full of life, it’s no more dirty than a tropical forest, etc. But, for me, the desert represents a wasteland, dry and barren of possibility, open and exposed to the scorching sun. If I have to drive through it, it’s something to pass through as quickly as possible.

My pastor last Sunday began a series of sermons on Jesus’ temptation by the devil in the desert (Luke 4). He highlighted the contrast between the first temptation with the first Adam in the lush garden of Eden and this second temptation with the “last Adam” (I Cor 15:45) in the arid desert. Jesus Christ, led by the Holy Spirit, intentionally put himself into a climate where he would be tempted in the most natural ways (hunger, thirst, discomfort, discouragement), as well as in supernatural ones (Satan’s challenges), in order to demonstrate for us how to win the battle against temptation.

Life is, of course, replete with its lush forests and arid deserts, its times of plenty and its times of drought. For me, the desert is a temptation: a temptation to complain and be discontent. George Herbert expresses this well in his poem “The Bunch of Grapes.” Likening the experience of the Christian life to that of the Israelites wandering in the wilderness, Herbert says,

“We have our sands and serpents, tents and shrouds;

     Alas, our murmurings come not last!” (17-18)

So true: our response in the desert tends to be complain first; ask questions later.

I will quote another line from Herbert, this time from his poem “Home”:

“Nothing but drought and dearth, but bush and brake,

     Which way so-e’re I look, I see” (49-50)

The desert is a temptation: to despair in the wasteland. All seems barren. No possibilities. Maybe the seeming wasteland continues for as far as the eye can see.

What might it mean to embrace the desert? I’m not sure I’m ready for that one. Christ’s response to his temptation in the desert must be a key to our survival in the times of drought in life, though: stay rooted in God’s Word, know that the Holy Spirit can enable one to win the battle against temptation, turn to the Savior who can sympathize with us in our temptations, and maintain hope of the reward to come as a result of winning the battle.

So, should I yearn to see the “oasis” (to belabor the metaphor), or should I learn to appreciate the desert? I don’t know that I have the answer.