Spiritual Anchor Points

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The soft rise and fall of the swells cause the ropes which hold the ship to protest and groan. Time and again it rises, the rope stretches almost to the breaking point it seems, as the anchor firmly pulls the ship back against the pier. As the swell subsides, the rope becomes relaxed waiting for the next swell. Without these ropes and anchors, a ship would do little good. It would be next to impossible to load or unload a ship if it did not have some sort of anchor system to keep the ship from drifting in the constantly moving water. Those anchor points need to be anchored solid and deep to prevent her from drifting away from shore and out to sea.

To the east of where we live, about a half hour drive, we have a couple of large lakes which are used for commercial water transportation. Large barges full of fuel, grain, rock, and other commodities travel up and down these water ways. To the north they connect with the Ohio river which will take them either to the eastern states, or west to the great Mississippi river which is their route to the south to the Gulf of Mexico. It is not uncommon on these water ways to see these huge steel and concrete structures rising out of the water. These are anchor points where boats can tie on to if they need to. Unlike ocean going vessels, these barges largely depend on anchor points along the way to keep them from drifting. This has taken forethought and planning to provide those anchor points. No doubt, those piers are engineered and have foundations firmly established in the solid earth underneath the water, making them solid and unmovable. Without these places to tie on to, the current of the river would aimlessly take them downstream, adrift without an anchor.

On the other hand, there are many stories from the American frontier of men who were drifters. These men would drift into town for a few days, then leave without a trace. Chasing dreams, running away from the law, or just living for the moment. Perhaps some did not have the anchor of a home and family and were seeking a place to belong. They were drifters, men without a real purpose; or perhaps they did have a purpose but it did not allow them to be stable men. They drifted from one place to another, like a boat without an anchor.

Quite a few years ago I used to do some work for an elderly gentleman who had run a gas station in the community for many years. As it often is, they have a lot of stories to tell. This little hamlet was known in the past for being on the south side of the law. The story he told could have come from the wild west. There was a small café, grocery, and at one time a hotel. One day four men rode in on horseback and commenced to have a shoot-out there on the corner, and they all died. No one knew where they were from or who they were. They just drifted in, and settled whatever was between them, and no one was the winner.

God does not want us to aimlessly drift through life. He has created man to need security; spiritually, emotionally, and physically. When these needs are not met, man becomes insecure and subsequently may turn to unhealthy things seeking for it.

Our country’s governments and laws are designed to create structure and boundaries of acceptable behavior. When we know where these are, it provides security for the inhabitants. They can live comfortably within them without getting caught and punished. In a sense we could call them anchor points, created to have structure in society so there is a semblance of order. Without these laws, everyone would do things according to their own interpretation of what they thought they should do, and chaos would ensue.

Unfortunately, the world continues to produce people who have little familial, and moral anchor points. Many children come from dysfunctional homes where sin, vice, and Satan have broken down the family structure. This predisposes those little ones to grow up without proper moral, and ethical anchor points in their lives. Being left vulnerable, they are prone to follow and believe whatever wind or wave of whatever comes along. Without a moral anchor of truth, they have nothing to keep them from believing anything.

The loss of these anchor points is inevitable as man drifts away from God. This must have been the state of the world when God decided to destroy it with a flood.  His wrath on sin became so great that He could no longer tolerate man’s selfishness and immorality. However, Noah and his family found grace and God saved them. Noah was called the preacher of righteousness because he preached to the people, warning them of the wrath to come. See 2 Peter 2:5. None of us were there to know exactly how sinful the world had become. We do know that God’s mercy had run out and His wrath was poured out on His creation. Today, we live in the gospel era, the day of grace; Jesus has come, and the Holy Spirit has been poured out. This means that now God calls to men and women wherever they are, through the direction of the Holy Spirit. He does not solely rely on men like Noah to preach sin and repentance.

Of himself, man does not have the ability to set firm moral anchors to keep him on a straight course. As long as man has an understanding or belief in a higher power, it will give him anchor points of judgment beyond himself. When man turns away from a belief in God and places himself as capable of directing his own choices of moral right and wrong, he will drift. In other words, he becomes his own god in which he is the sole judge of his actions. This man will not be able to retain a course that will give him true lasting happiness or a home in heaven at the end of life.

Many of us have grown up in a Christian environment with parents who served the Lord. Our home may not have been perfect, yet we were given the anchor points of the conviction and knowledge of God. Now what our perception of God is, may be related to how our parents perceived Him to be. We hope that perception is correct and good. However, it could also view God as being fiercely judgmental, waiting to strike us down at our first mistake, or of a casual God, who does not really care what we do as long as our heart is right. Neither of these views is a correct perception of Him. Although He is a Being who does not tolerate sin, He is also benevolent and merciful. To understand Him for who He really is, we will need to draw close to Him and learn to trust. We need to develop a personal relationship with Him, that He is the first one we reach out to for whatever we need. Some may find this difficult because of their default belief process. They may need to learn to exercise their faith and trust in a loving sovereign God.

To be successful in our Christian journey, we will need solid biblical anchor points. This will help us live victoriously and maintain our mental health. At times I have found myself unnecessarily serving God with a guilty conscience. Just a feeling like I am not quite good enough to make the grade. I know that to be untrue, and as a young Christian came to understand that God did indeed love me and was pleased with me. I needed to learn to recognize the tormenting fear which Satan used to steal my peace. God gave me a scripture, 1 John 3:19-22, which help me overcome Satan’s torments. Some of us still have our natures to deal with and are prone to be like a doubting Thomas. I have found that my faith in God, is the only way to grasp these promises. It is like the rope that goes from the ship to the anchor, without it, we have no anchor. It is by faith we grasp the promises of God. The writer to the Hebrews says that without faith it is impossible to please God. See Hebrews 11:6.

It seems our number one point is that we have a scriptural understanding that God loves me personally and created me the way I am for His purpose. He is not dissatisfied with me, unless of course I am living in sin. It is easy for us to think that God does not really love us, or care about us. Sometimes we feel like we slipped through the cracks and are a nobody. These are the lies that Satan and our mind want to tell us. However, they are not the truth. God did not make a mistake when He created me or give me my temperament and personality. If we believe that He created the world and everything in it, then we have to believe that He created you and me with our faults and weaknesses. This point may be difficult to believe and may take a retraining of our mind to believe it is the truth. On this journey of understanding, very likely we will need to have an encounter with God in prayer to be able to cast off these negative impressions. It could be that we will need to confess our unbelief to Him and accept a walk of faith. That being said, I believe that He will reveal Himself in a very special way if we continue to seek Him and freedom from this bondage. I have experienced it over and over again, that God is good, and He is not near a strong of a judge as my intellect is apt to tell me He is. Of course, He does not tolerate sin, but He can help us relax into letting Him show us our sin, rather than Satan making us feel like dirty sinners all the time.

In order for us to believe that God loves us, we have to understand that God’s Word, the Bible is truth. We will also need to spend time reading in it, and praying for God to reveal His goodness and promises to us out of it. I remember many turbulent times in my youth years of turning to the Word and finding verses that gave me courage and belief that God did indeed care about me. I remember writing a verse down, putting it in my wallet, and taking it with me to read throughout the day. I have often failed God, but He never failed me.

 There are anchor points of right and wrong, sin and blessings. We find these in the Word of God which give us clear direction how we should live for God. What He is pleased with, and what He is not pleased with. The beginning of the anchor points of Christian life are found way back in the Old Testament, when God gave the ten commandments to Moses and the children of Israel. That was the law, but it is still as real and alive today as it was back then. It is the foundation of the New Testament time in which we live. When we drift away from God into sin, it is a given that we will be breaking one or more of those commandments. It is this law that teaches us what sin is, and on which ground God calls us to be His child.

The Holy Spirit is given to us as a guide on this Christian journey. He is also an assurance of our heavenly home. Before we are a child of God, it is He who calls and convicts us of sin. It is He who causes the guilt of sin to press down upon our hearts, letting us know that our way is not pleasing to God. After we yield to the Lord, it is He who fills our heart with peace, happiness, and joy. You can read about His attributes in Galatians chapter five. This is perhaps one of the greatest anchors of the Christian. The Holy Spirit is the voice of God, the third part of the Godhead. He is like our internal spiritual compass and guide. Where the Bible does not spell sin out for us today, the Holy Spirit is there to provide the needed direction to us. This can happen personally in our hearts, as well as collectively as a group of Christians.

There are perhaps many more anchor points, each according to our individual needs. When we use the anchors, they will bring a feeling of safety to us and to our families. And when we wonder about something, we can go to our spiritual brothers and sisters and they also can become our anchor points. You can purchase what they call these five-point harnesses for safety. They are made to keep you from falling and getting injured. Well, with the Word of God and our spiritual brothers and sisters, we have much more than just a five-point harness for safety. We can have many more. Like the writer of the Hebrews says: Hebrews 12:1-2  Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,  (2)  Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

God’s will and law are not locked away somewhere in the past but are still current today. Years ago, we used to be able to visit the Kentucky Lake dam, and watch the boats go through the locks. It was always interesting to see. Most often we watched large floats of barges go through, but now and again, we would observe small fishing and recreational vessels as well. On the walls of the locks there were many anchor points. However, only a few along the length of the lock area were what I would call floating anchors. Those anchors would rise and fall with the changing water levels in the lock. One day I saw someone frantically untying his craft from one of the unmovable anchors as the water began to fall. Somehow, they had mistakenly tied their boat onto one of these unmovable ones instead of the floating ones. This would have left them hanging far above the water on the side of the lock as the water level was lowered to that of the river level below the dam. Fortunately, he was able to untie his boat and was saved.

These stationary anchors in the wall of the locks remind me of when we anchor ourselves in our own set of beliefs. We may have solid Biblical backing for them, believing they are firmly anchored in the Word of God. However, if they are born of self, they will likely be full of criticism, judgment, and self-righteousness. Because our own judgment is often unyielding, it will leave us in jeopardy in the challenging seasons of life. Our spiritual craft may be left hanging far above the water.

On the other hand, God’s anchors are like those which rise and fall with the level of the water in the locks. God is not locked in time somewhere, unreachable to us. He is a God of today, in the present; through every rise and fall of life. His Holy Spirit is like this anchor; ever adjusting to life’s circumstances. He takes God’s Holy Word and makes it new for us today. It does not matter what country or culture we are from; He is there ready to speak His direction and inspiration to us.

This does not mean that God makes a compromise of His truth to reach us, it simply means His Word is timeless. His love is there ready for us through whatever life may bring. When we feel good, or bad, through emotional highs and lows, He is there, steady, and strong. This also means that His Word is unchanging. His promises and judgments are no different today than when they were first penned. This can be a comfort or a reproof, depending on if we are living for the Lord or not.

May we truly seek to find our anchor in the Lord so that we can stand solid on the Word of God in this our day.

Ephesians 4:14-16  That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;  (15)  But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ:  (16)  From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.