The Anchor Holds

The Anchor Holds

Hebrews 6:18–20: ¹⁸God did this so that, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope set before us may be greatly encouraged. ¹⁹We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, ²⁰where our forerunner, Jesus, has entered on our behalf. He has become a high priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.

My sons and a neighbor boy (sometimes my daughter) used to get up very early on Saturday mornings to go fishing at a large man-made lake in Kansas. One Friday evening, we decided to fish late and spend the night in our tent. All worked out fine; however, we were not all that prepared for the driving rainstorm that came a bit after mid-night. We had pulled our little fishing boat up to the shoreline and dropped our anchor down. Being our boat was small and light, we had found an anchor, a coffee can filled with concrete, and a strong chain had been tossed in before the concrete dried (set). It was heavy enough to sink to the bottom of the lake and sink in maybe halfway up the coffee can. Yep—it would hold the boat in normal lake breezes. With that boat, we were never caught in high winds, so I cannot say if it would be a good anchor in higher winds. What happened that night when we slept in our tent (in the rainstorm) was unusual. It rained so hard, our little boat filled with water and sank. The anchor was not designed for that ‘down’ situation, but rather to stop ‘floating away.’

Our ‘anchor in life’ (the Lord) keeps us from ‘floating’ back into the world of pain and suffering that we came out of. The dark negative winds and rain may try their best to get us lost again in the raging waves of the dark cold waters. The little lamb that took off on his own is another example of ‘slipping away.’ He had gotten lost on the cold mountain side with thorn bushes, wolves, and darkness around him. Oh no, Jesus knew what would happen to him and went out in the driving rain—and brought him back to the shelter, where he would be healed. Our anchor holds! If we try to break away from it as the little lamb did, that does not mean that we will be lost forever. No, our savior does not give up on us, even in our foolishness, so will come looking time and time again until we find our rest in the ‘shelters’ of life, instead of taking chances in the deadly winds of the wild darkness of the world.

by Robert D. Anderson