three anchors for hard times

We just want security.

Something or someone to turn to when life spooks and won't be saddled or led about anymore. Someone who will always be there unchanging and expected when life is not. Some safety net to catch the free fall.

You see, I left my job last week. A move as necessary and right as it was difficult and unexpected. You're just going to have to take that at face value. And this is how I found myself thinking after that.

I just want security. A few grand in the bank would do the trick. The assurance that no one need help me. The confidence that I can maintain the quality of my current lifestyle. The security of knowing nothing more needs to change right now. I just want security. A knowledge of what's next would be enough. To know what's on the other side of this 'in-between' time. A move? A new career? A person? More of the same? I can weather anything if I know what's next. I just want security, folks. A spouse would do just fine. Someone 'for me' no matter what happens. Someone to speak truth into my life when I'm at home in the quiet evening hours. Someone whose love and support were embodied in a...um...I don't know, a body? And words of commitment, compassion, and confidence whispered gentle when the world stops speaking that way. 

And we just want something to hold onto.

But as wonderful as those would be, they are not that secure. Riches are uncertain. The future is always shifting. No person is strong enough to hold the weight of my life. God knew that before I reached that conclusion a few days ago. And He led me to His Word instead. You see, there’s nothing more secure than the mind of God towards me. So here’s what I’ve been clinging to the last week. Three passages. Three anchors. Security for all my insecure.

The Love of God

At the end of Romans 8, Paul asks this question: What can separate us from the love of God? (yes, I mentioned this last week.) And then he lists all these things that do separate us. From each other. From stuff in this world. From life. He concludes, “but none of these things can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Security. An anchor in the storm. My Saviour’s love for me is a “tie that naught can sever.”

The knowledge of His will

In Colossians 1 Paul prays that the believers “be filled with the knowledge of God’s will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing…” I may not have a knowledge of what’s next but I can have a knowledge of what’s now. To know how to walk this ‘in-between’ in a worthy way that will bring Him pleasure. He will give me light to do what pleases Him today. All I need do is ask. That’s what Paul is doing. And that’s security, folks. A present and perfect anchor.

The sovereign hand of God

David constructs the first half of Psalm 37 in a fascinating way. We find God mowing down and cutting off the workers of iniquity and evil schemers. We find Him feeding His people, granting their desires, and enabling them to move forward on their way. We find a justice and a care that works outside human possibility. And sandwiched in the middle, we find this command: Rest, wait patiently, and do not fret. Why? Because God’s got this, folks. He works justice when we cannot. He provides for us what we cannot. He’s sovereignly at work for our benefit. And I can rest in that and patiently wait for it to come about. And it will. It’s the mind of my God toward me.

There is no anchor more secure.

Beth