SCRIPTURE: This hope we hold as the utterly reliable anchor for our souls, fixed in the very certainty of God himself in Heaven, where Jesus has already entered on our behalf. Hebrews 6:19 Phillips
THOUGHT: We all need an anchor, even if it’s an anchor that is currently wound up on deck and waiting for the necessary moment.
Hope is not the same thing as faith. Our faith can’t lay coiled up and waiting on deck, and neither can it trawl through the water day after day like a heavy burden slowing us down. Faith is our transport – like the ship in this metaphor – and the anchor, hope, is something that rises and falls. We’ve got to have the ship under us, whether the sea is calm or rough. But the anchor can either function to secure us to the spot we need to stay, or steady us when the water is rough or the danger is high. And hope can anchor us like that. Some days we must sail; some days we must stay still.
My faith says “God, you are my rock, you are the foundation under my feet – and underneath are the everlasting arms (Deut. 33:27).” My hope says as the water rises, “with your help, God, I know I can face this because I can do all things when you give me strength (Phil. 4:13).” When I’m surrounded by dangerous shoals and reefs (or icebergs), my hope says, “Oh God, my protector, deliverer, redeemer! Because of your great love and mercy, I shall not be brought to shame! (Is. 50:7)” And when I make that final journey through death to resurrection, my hope proclaims, “I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever (Ps. 23:6).”
So whether hope the anchor is above deck or below, high and at the ready, or deep and resting the bottom, it is not finally our hope that saves us. It is faith credited as righteousness. So, nourish hope, but not at the expense of faith because there is a hope that disappoints, and that is the hope of the world without God. Dangerous shoals indeed that have shipwrecked many a soul.
PRAYER: Oh God, thank you for faith the ship and hope the anchor. And thank you, that undergirding it all – even feeble analogies – are your everlasting arms.
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Blogger Amy Clemens is the author of Walking When You’d Rather Fly: Meditations on Faith After the Fall. In it she explores childhood sexual abuse and how it impacted her faith (or lack thereof) for four decades. You’ll find not only her story, but better yet, the Big Story of God.
Check out Walking When You’d Rather Fly, and learn more about the book and Amy’s other ministries. You will also find her devotional work at Words of Hope.
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