We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. (Hebrews 6:19, NIV)
You know that the best golfers swing freely. There are no encumbrances to their swing, no place where they get stuck, no wasted motion cutting into their speed.
Now you may make a swing like this on lucky occasion, but chances are you often feel like a wobbly weight holds you back. Your feet are fixed to the ground or an undercurrent of panic produces a hitch unto disaster. You aren’t Charles Barkley, but there are times when you’d have to make a clever argument to prove you’re not related.
In golf, the feeling of being anchored is never good. You want fluidity and release. Freedom produces the flowing result that helps you look like a tour champ.
Some will tell you that being anchored in life is detrimental, too. Who wants to be tied down? Who wants others to set their course for them or tell them what to do? I understand that. Others may have no better idea where I should be headed than I do. But God does. And he gives us every reason to believe that being anchored to him brings us the freedom of living secure for now and eternity.
Why can I trust in God? Because every aspect of his character is fixed.But before we go on, let’s be sure we don’t jump to conclusions. In life, security and safety are not always the same thing. God may take us to places where safety is almost an accident. This is not his “reckless love” that some sing about. It’s all in his plan. Forgive me for a personal example here, but my doctors are telling me I will have to start some new chemotherapy treatments this month. That’s not a safe place, but I am, I know, secure in the care of the Lord.
For the woman or man of God, we draw our security, we find ourselves anchored, in God himself. You may not at first recognize this from today’s verse, where the author of Hebrews pointed to “this hope” as the anchor for our soul. The hope of which he writes is the fulfilled promise of God to bless Abraham, the man of faith, with innumerable descendants. And we, as people of faith, are among those descendants, with Christ making irrevocable sacrifice for us as our Savior.
But what the Hebrews author emphasized was more than the hope. It was the provider of the hope, who secured his promise by an oath sworn upon himself. God was making “the unchanging nature of his purpose very clear.”
In this way, God’s purpose reflected God’s nature: immutable. Why can I trust in God? Because every aspect of his character—his love, his holiness, his longsuffering, his might, his wisdom, his mercy, his excellence, his infinite existence—is fixed. God is not going anywhere, and when we are anchored to him, neither are we.
—
Jeff Hopper
March 10, 2020
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The Links Daily Devotional appears Monday-Friday at www.linksplayers.com.
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