Safely Anchored?
Written By: Chris Mace
Precariously perched on a piece of seaweed tenuously attached to a lobster buoy, this little sandpiper seemed a bit disconcerted as its world swirled madly around it.
We know what it is like to be overwhelmed, to lose the meaningful context of our lives, to become disoriented by chaotic ideas and events rushing in upon us. Searching for meaning in the confusion, we seek and choose places to land in order to maintain stability and personal value; we latch onto intellectually and emotionally appealing ideas and noble activities. We challenge ourselves to excel. Yet we like routines and feel more confident when there is structure and predictability. Whatever our ideologies and personal efforts, they evaporate the day we disappear into eternity. We know our journey is transitory, but are we prepared for its earthly end?
Scripture envisions this life as the staging ground for an afterlife which is best approached by a trusting relationship with God, in whose image we are created and without whom life makes no ultimate sense. He is the solid ground on which the soul can safely rest.The Psalmist recognized Him as Savior and a secure place as he sang: “God is our refuge and strength/an ever-present help in trouble/
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way
and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea/ though its waters roar and foam/and the mountains quake with their surging/…The Lord Almighty is with us/the God of Jacob is our fortress. (Psalm 46)
God’s immeasurable love secures those who believe in Him and trust Him to redeem them. An old hymn first composed in 1824 but rewritten several times and still sung in churches today expresses that redemptive hope: “On Christ the solid rock I stand…./When all around my soul gives way/ He then is all my hope and stay.”
Because of God’s loving character and promises, we can live with confidence despite life’s pressures and uncertainties. We may find ourselves powerless,vulnerable, and seemingly insignificant, but the buoying truth is that there is a grand and beautiful plan for life with God now and beyond our existence on this earth. That life is substantive and eternally secure and made possible by trusting Christ and his redemptive work. God’s love, grace and mercy are steadfast.
Even as life swirls about us, we can sing the words of another old hymn: “My faith has found a resting place/ not in device nor creed/ I trust the ever living one/ His wounds for me shall plead/ I need no other argument/ I need no other plea/ It is enough that Jesus died/ and that he died for me.”