Hope your New Year has started well. This blog is about Hope. The Hope that knowing God’s promises produces.
We went to Charleston for a few days last week, my wife, college daughter, and I. I enjoy the city, its history, its food, and its buildings. We had fabulous “doses” of each, with carriage tour, food and history tour, and biking through the historic district. I looked at many houses that have a rod put through them, to stabilize and preserve them. Most of these houses were built with materials available, which was not much brick but lots of stucco, and after centuries, they need “shoring up.” Those rods, called earthquake bolts, serve as an anchor to the home, much like rebar in modern construction. They help it weather the storms which batter that coast. These pictures are of bolts on the “Powder Magazine,” the earliest arms and munitions storage in the city, which was built in 1713.
The Bible says that we have an anchor for our soul, our hope that God’s truth and nature are unchangeable. God’s promises are “rods” to shore us up. Hebrews 6:17-19 says “God, desiring even more to demonstrate to the heirs of the promise the fact that His purpose is unchangeable, by which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to hold firmly to the hope set before us. This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and reliable.”
Crowder has a new song, “The Anchor,” that echoes this.
Some of the lyrics include these:
“For anyone battered, For any heart shattered
For anyone sinking down, Hold on, hold on.
There’s an anchor in the rage of the storm
When the walls are closing in, in the darkness all alone
Just praying for the daylight, peace for the soul
There’s grace for the morning when you feel like letting go
To all who have faltered, There is an altar
Bring your plea on bended knee, Bow down, bow down.
All you sons and daughters, Run to the father
You’re not too far from opened arms, Come home, come home.
With just a touch, You calm me, Just a whisper, You love me
Without judgment You hold me No one ever has known me, You made me
A King that is coming (Oh-oh-oh)
The Great I AM (Oh-oh-oh)
He is the anchor, He is the anchor of my soul.”[1]
This year, let’s all rediscover this hope that says Jesus is the anchor. In whatever way you need to, come home to the anchor. I believe with all my might it will carry us through the storms. If you want to remind yourself of the basis of this hope, of the unchanging promises, join in reading my new book, which launches today. I believe it will encourage you.
[1] Written By Tommee Profitt & Crowder. Milk & Honey album, 2021.
