This is one of those seasons in which I feel like I am sitting next to the disciples in a rickety boat with a feisty storm brewing around me. Jesus is curled up on the other side of the boat snoring peacefully while our faces bear matching marks of concern. Our white knuckles gripped around the sides of the boat expose our anxiety and lack of trust.
My heart feels seasick and I am willing to do anything to anchor into something, anything. Sure, I hope it will be Jesus and the security of his word, but at this point I feel so sick I am not so sure that I won’t cling to anything that promises me even half an hour of stillness.
On the mornings I am afraid the storm is going to take me out, I open my Bible to the words of the writer of Hebrews who intimately cared for the struggles and wrestlings of a doubter. I read his words to remind my heart that Jesus died for this very sin of unbelief, fear, and doubt in his promises. In the midst of a storm, I read his words to anchor me in the security of once and for all.
Hebrews 6 reminds me of these three things that steady me in the storm:
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1) We can feel sure of better things
When the boat starts rocking and I don’t get my own way – I begin to get shaky in my belief in God.
My heart gets so focused on something that he has created that I lose sight of Him, the creator, and the waves start rising. And when I lose sight of Him, I lose sight of what it is I truly need to feel secure in. I forget that these temporal things are not the gateway to true security and happiness.
I want to be anchored by the guarantee of an earthly promise – to have financial security, to have the perfect family, to get that job and be crazy successful at it, or maybe just the guarantee that failure won’t hurt.
Hebrews 6 reminds me that God cares that I feel sure in the right things, the good things, the better things. His desire is that we would cling to the anchor that He has better things for us – things that belong to salvation.
2) We are not called to be sluggish.
When I begin to feel apathetic about all things God, the first thing that I do is slow down. I stop serving, get lazy in loving others, and slothful in how I spend my time.
Hebrews 6:11-12 says this: And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.
This is when it gets tricky for me. How am I supposed to show the same earnestness on days when the dark clouds are threatening disaster as the days when the waters are laying flat and the sun is shining?
He says, don’t be sluggish, but – instead – be imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. We look at those in Scripture who have gone before us and who inherited the promises and we do what they do. Hebrews 11 is a faithful line up of men and women who endured storms that I can’t even imagine. They forged on through suffering, wilderness, barrenness, and much more. They were made strong through their storms.
3) We have a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul.
We are constantly looking around us for something to anchor us, to steady us, to secure our soul. We dig through blogs, books and internet for counsel, we hide away in movies, food and people. We will go to anything and everything to make us feel more steadied.
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We have been given a sure and steadfast anchor of our souls – the refuge of the gospel. Set before us is a hope that is unbreakable. Jesus, once and for all, shed his blood and purchased for us forgiveness of sins and life in Him that begins upon salvation and endures for all of eternity.
When the storms come, whether a brief Texas shower or a season of typhoons, this is our refuge of promise by which we might be encouraged to hold fast to the hope set before us.
Come what may, He is my true and steadfast anchor.