The Transcontinental Railroad

There are certain endeavors in human history that once they were proposed, seemed to have been so unreasonable and difficult, that one wonders if the people behind them were propelled more by sheer arrogance than by rational planning.  Building the Transcontinental Railroad is one such project.  Spanning nearly 2,000 miles of unrelentless wilderness, mountains, deserts, and hostile terrain, in any sane world, this project should not have worked. 

And yet it did.  Not because it was easy, but because a staggering number of determined, desperate, and occasionally reckless people willed it into existence.  One of our nation's most absurdly difficult engineering feats of the 19th century was accomplished with an utter disregard for common sense … as well as a lot of dynamite.  

One of the main challenges for the railroad was to cut a pathway through the Rocky Mountains.  This required the workers to blast tunnels through solid rock and lay track along near-vertical cliffs.  When they first started blasting, they used black powder dynamite.  Later came the development of nitroglycerin, which was fifty times more powerful than dynamite.

In order to build the rail lines around the mountains, workers were lowered in baskets over sheer cliffs, where they would set explosive charges, light the fuses, and hope that their ropes were still attached when they swung back to safety.  The problem was, once they started using nitro, it was so unpredictable and volatile that bumping along a mountainside was enough to set it off.  They lost a lot of workers that way. 

It was relentless, dangerous work.  Most of the railroad laborers of that era were made up of society’s most marginalized people.  The west side recruited and shipped in thousands of Chinese workers, while the east side was made up mostly of free blacks, Irish immigrants, and dozens of other nationalities.  After nearly seven years, thanks to their efforts, the United States finally had a means of connecting the East Coast with the West Coast.  Led by mostly uneducated people from diverse backgrounds, they managed to put aside their differences and work together.  It had a major impact in helping our country move forward after the dreadfulness of the Civil War. 

In Mark 11:23, Jesus talked about moving spiritual mountains, and He used a bit of hyperbole to teach on the challenge of positive thinking: “I tell you the truth, you can say to this mountain, ‘May you be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ and it will happen. But you must really believe it will happen and have no doubt in your heart.” 

We all have mountains in our lives that need to be overcome.  Perhaps we need to look at our challenges from a different perspective.  Perhaps we simply need to trust God more with the challenges we already have on our plates.

My prayer this week is for all of us at CityLinC to blast through the obstacles in our path and move mountains for our clients.  May we revolutionize our thinking and work on changing minor defeats into major victories. 

With love,

Pastor Mike Howard