I know that yesterday’s devotional on suffering was long and even a hard one for me retype up from early February. The sin that is in this world is oppressive and we cannot escape it. But at the same time, we have hope.

“When God made his promise to Abraham, since there was no one greater for him to swear by, he swore by himself, saying, ‘I will surely bless you and give you many descendants.’ And so after waiting patiently, Abraham received what was promised. People swear by someone greater than themselves, and the oath confirms what is said and puts an end to all argument. Because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of his purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised, he confirmed it with an oath. God 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. We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, where our forerunner, Jesus, has entered on our behalf. He has become a high priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek” (Hebrews 6:13-20, NIV).

What does it mean to be anchored? So I try to do a little bit of research before I write my devotionals so I am not just coming up with anything I am thinking (it’s sort of like written rambling…) But anyway, I found this article that when I went to find it cite it, Google told me that the website no longer available… but it’s ok because I learned something interesting.

According to the excerpt I was able to see, you want to drop your anchor before the storm sets in so that you are grounded before the waves come. Sailors who are sailing out in the open sea when a storm hits sometimes just need to ride it out. In faith, the first makes so much more sense as a tie-in. BEFORE the waves hit, BEFORE the storm is tossing you about, you want to have already put down your anchor.

Another concept that I want to leave you with is the question: What is your anchor? I was listening to a sermon a few years back now and the pastor asked this very question. What he said was, “You can have complete faith in something that is not worth your trust. You can have your faith that in a storm, if you hold into an anvil, it will keep you afloat. But no matter how much you have faith in that anvil, you will still sink.”

What is your hope anchored in? If the storms come, are you prepared? Or if they already have, were you anchored where you wanted to be? During this time of suffering, you need to know that even if you don’t realize it, you are holding onto something. May it be Jesus Christ, and if not, then I invite you to ask me or someone else what it is like to be sure in Jesus! Regardless of who you are or where you are in life, you are anchored.

Service Unavailable

The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to maintenance downtime or capacity problems. Please try again later.

Additionally, a 503 Service Unavailable error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.