The Anchor

I remember the days of old; 

I meditate on all that you have done; 
I ponder the work of your hands. 
I stretch out my hands to you; my soul thirsts for you like a parched land. (Psalm 143:5-6 ESV)

When life is hard and the waves keep slamming into us, our anchor is in our history with God. Usually when the waves hit, we tend to only see them and the destruction they are causing all around us and we forget that we aren’t alone. 

When the pain is loud, our awareness of God can dim. This isn’t due to sin; it’s due to focus. When we hurt, we are usually not focusing on God, we are focusing on the pain. When we were children and fell and tripped, scrapping our knees, we didn’t think about our parents who were walking next to us; at that moment we were thinking about the cut and the pain associated with it. 

We are not called to ignore pain; we are people who speak of it and are honest about it. Our God knows pain and is not scandalized by it; He who was crucified knows it well. We acknowledge the truth of our pain while also calling back to our minds our history with God in order to rekindle hope that He is with us still. 

We remember His faithfulness to us; we remember the clear beacons that He lit that shined His light in the dark night of this present life. We remember the joy of His presence and make space for Him in our minds and in our hearts through prayer and ruminating over Scripture. We are recalibrating as we do this. The memories of His joy that we awaken let His rest put us at peace when life has run us over. 

In painful moments we scarcely have anything worth saying besides  the obvious; we are hurting, tired, doubting, and frightened. Yet our memories of His drawing close to us are the faint light that does not dim. They can become a path from remembrance to healing. When we let God be with us in our pain, He can put His hands on where our soul hurts the most. 

This is easy to write, but I have been blindsided by life, and I completely forget my history with God. I have even disregarded it and blamed God for my misfortune. Yet His grace doesn't retreat like the waves that draw back and then pummel me. 

His grace is a steady anchor keeping me from drifting away in despair. This grace is always available to us, even if we do not feel it. It works the same in us like God Himself being present with us, we are often not aware of it unless our focus shifts, from the waves to the One who is with us as they are hitting. Otherwise, we will capsize. The enemy of grace isn’t always blatant sin; it can be forgetting who God is. Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote once: 

“Only love protects against forgetting. Because God's word has spoken to us in history and thus in the past, the remembrance and repetition of what we have learned is a necessary daily exercise. Every day we must turn again to God's acts of salvation, so that we can again move forward...Faith and obedience live on remembrance and repetition.” 

Grace to endure works in us as we open our hearts and minds to God through faith, which is a well-placed trust in who we know Him to be. He is a good Father and gives Himself to us unselfishly. His history with us will always testify to this. If He was with us then, we can trust that He is with us now. This hope is the anchor of the soul. We must practice the remembrance of God.