Is Your Anchor Being Put to Use?

Every time I take a few moments to read the Voice of the Martyrs monthly magazine, it is a tremendous blessing and challenge to me. In the December issue, Director Tom White shares an illustration about an anchor. He says,

“An anchor does not hold the ship simply because it is heavy. The anchor must dig in. How does the anchor dig? The current or the wind causes it to dig in—pulling the ship and stretching the chain tight so the anchor can grip. The more the pull, the more tightly the anchor will hold. The greater or more consistent the challenge to our faith, the more tightly the anchor of our soul can hold.”

Some time ago, I sat in a Sunday School class and listened to the teacher advocate that the lack of persecution for our faith here in America should prompt us to serve in another country where the likelihood of facing intense persecution is significantly greater. I remember commenting that a lack of persecution is often more likely attributed to the unwillingness of Christians to place themselves in persecutable positions than it is to a lack of persecution to go around in America.

There are any number of things that we could do that would immediately invite rejection or ridicule. But often, we shrink from such situations on one hand while on the other hand declaring our willingness and desire to travel to foreign lands and people and face unimaginable physical persecution. Somehow physical persecution in a strange land is a more palatable thought than rejection or ridicule on American soil.

In his excellent book, Don’t Waste Your Life, John Piper speaks of taking risks for God. He defines risk as,

“an action that exposes you to the possibility of loss or injury.”

He then asks a poignant question,

“What if a successful risk would bring great benefit to many people, and its failure would bring harm only to yourself?”

A few paragraphs later, he issues this stinging observation,

“The tragic hypocrisy is that the enchantment of security lets us take risks every day for ourselves but paralyzes us from taking risks for others on the Calvary road of love."

What does it mean to take a risk for God?

For me, at the time I read this book, it meant designing a special tract to give to the other students in a pottery class I was taking.

Shortly thereafter it meant offering a prayer for the meal I was overseeing at a secular music teachers conference.

In short, it meant acknowledging God in all my ways (Proverbs 3:6), not just the ones where I felt comfortable or readily accepted.

For Noah Riner, it meant giving a convocation speech, pointing the listeners to Jesus Christ as the Personification of good character and the only means to attaining such character themselves.

For former Chief Justice Roy Moore, it meant prominently displaying the Ten Commandments in the courthouse of Alabama, acknowledging God as the Supreme Lawgiver.

For Alabama Supreme Court Justice Tom Parker, it meant offering the lone dissent in defense of the right of all Americans to worship God.

What does it mean for you? We are quick to proclaim the virtue of living out our lives as Christians. But why stop there? Let us boldly acknowledge God and openly declare His name among the heathen. And when the winds of adversity blow in, let us rejoice that those very winds can be the means to anchor us ever more securely in our Eternal Rock—the Lord God Almighty.