My Anchor

Everyone knows that a ship requires an anchor to remain stable during storms or to stay put when currents would push it along. Without something to hold them firm, sailing vessels might crash against the shore, or a reef, or rocks, or forever drift at sea.

Yesterday brought storms. Someone gave us deeply distressing prayer requests. I received difficult news from another source. Like sea waves, my stomach churned and no matter how I prayed, I could not shake the sense of being blown off my moorings by howling winds and an enemy who taunted me with, now where is your God?

This morning God gave me an anchor and at the same time made me realize that the one I was using was made of glass.

I find it far too easy to misread my source of security when all is going well. Instead of God being the One in control and being the reason that I am joyful, all those good circumstances He provides slither up unto the throne and I begin evaluating where I am and how I am doing by those things—instead of God.

Circumstances change. As my reading from God is Enough says, God alone is unchangeable. The things I call “spiritual blessings” are not. Prayers that are answered yesterday may seem to be unanswered today. A promise that was fulfilled last week may seem to lose its luster this week. Spiritual blessings that once brought joy fade into memories that seem utterly impossible to recall. Like the manna God used to feed His people, what nourished me yesterday has shriveled and become unappetizing today.

Is this why I must always seek His face? I think so. Stuff, good events, even answered prayer can become the things that I rely on; but, because they are prone to change, all such things cannot keep my heart at rest. As soon as those howling winds of change or adversity come, all that seemed good seems gone.

Yet, as my reading says, when all else is gone, God is still left. Nothing changes Him. He remains “the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever” (Hebrews 13:8). He still loves me. He still cares for me. He still provides all my needs. I remember my mother often saying about unexpected storms, “Well, we must need it or we wouldn’t be getting it.” She knew that God knows what is best, and sometimes it might be storms.

Aside from whatever good the storms might do for me, there is a lesson in the fact that they happen. God wants me to recognize who and what I am trusting. My anchor only holds when it is deeply latched onto Him.

James 1:17 says, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.” Stuff wavers, life wavers. God never does and my devotional reading says, “The soul who finds his joy in Him alone can suffer no wavering” either.

My pattern so often takes a slide from trusting God and enjoying His blessings, to trusting the blessings and wondering what happened when they seem to vanish. He reminds me this morning that I can always rejoice in Him. Unlike the circumstances of life, He never changes. More than that, when storms come I can always depend on Him to hold me solidly in place. The storms will pass, but my Anchor is always here.