When our anchor becomes sight

By Elizabeth Prata

We sang Christ the Sure and Steady Anchor at church yesterday. I love the marine references in the Bible, and as I sang I thought about anchors.

I lived by the water growing up and most of my adult life, mainly the ocean. Some years were spent on a lake. I loved it.

The ocean has moods, a personality, mystery, and power. Who doesn’t love a day at the beach? Even better, who doesn’t love a day ON the water? When we got a chance, we got on a boat. After a while, we had a boat. LOL, back in the day, a bunch of teenagers zooming around the bay on a 20 foot Boston Whaler wasn’t unusual.

We grew up knowing how to use our knees to ride the waves, could look at the rocks to spot the state of the tide, knew how to anchor, dock or throttle up to reach plane. We kept a weather eye on the clouds, watched the whitecaps, and had a grand time.

Despite having such familiarity with the water, and were so comfortable on it, we knew its dangers. On Narragansett Bay there was a navigational hazard called “boiler awash”.

It is a shallow patch of water near Hope Island near Prudence Island. A Navy tug sank there and its boiler, being tall, presented a hazard to the keels of boats passing over it. To make the shallow water issue worse, its boilers came to just under the surface of the water at low tide. It was a hazard all right. We always gave it a wide berth.

As an adult, I lived on a sailing yacht for two years and we sailed from Maine to Florida, crossed the Gulf Stream, and went on to the central Bahamas. We returned with the weather following the same route. Our route took us on almost every coastal river, sound, bay, and canal along the entire eastern seaboard as well as the Atlantic ocean waters off it.

Because we lived on the boat and were no longer teenagers messing around near shore, we well knew the hazards. Our VHF radio was full of calls from mariners in distress, the squawk of the marine weather station, and calls from the Coast Guard to alert to hazards (container awash, drifting and disabled boat, etc). Sailing in New England meant having intimate knowledge of reefs, shoals and rocks, and sailing in Florida meant having intimate knowledge of drunken fools, wannabe mariners and rich guy weekend warriors. In between, we learned to respect the fishermen, shrimpers, oystermen, and all the others trying to make a living.

We quickly acclimated to the water living and became respectful of the hazards. When you are underway, you are always on guard, even if it’s familiar water. Always, every second. Because any second, anything could happen, and since your boat was both your home and your transportation as well as your life, well, if it required being vigilant, that is what you did.

That is why, when the anchor was set and the engine turned off, you breathed a special sigh of relief. Oh, anything could still happen, but the ratcheting down of the vigilance was considerable. As long as the anchor held, you were all set. We just had to trust that it would hold.

I remember feeling a wonderful sense of relief when the day’s run was ended and we anchored. The engine turned off and all we could hear were the sounds of the birds and the waves. We were still, secure, and finished for the day.

When we’d traveled a thousand nautical miles were under our keel over the dark and murky waters, wondering ‘what’s down there?’ when we got to The Bahamas, the waters were clear to the bottom! We could SEE the anchor! We could determine if it was set or not, It was such a comfort after all those miles of trusting but not seeing the anchor, now to SEE it with our eyes. Our faith had become sight.

In Bible days there were only three ways to travel. You got there by walking, riding an animal, or boat. Paul traveled a lot and because of that, he was on a boat a lot. He used many marine references in his letters, examples that the people of the era would know well and understand immediately. Here are a few examples Paul and the other Apostles used:

But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. (James 1:6)

…tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine (Ephesians 4:14)

These are hidden reefs at your love feasts, as they feast with you without fear, shepherds feeding themselves; waterless clouds, swept along by winds (Jude 1:12)

holding faith and a good conscience. By rejecting this, some have made shipwreck of their faith, (1 Timothy 1:19)

Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. (Hebrews 2:1)

The interesting thing about that last one is that the drifting away in the Greek literally means from God’s anchor.

Strong’s explains, to “drift away from,”pararrhyéō, only occurs in Hebrews 2:1 where it refers to going spiritually adrift – “sinning by slipping away (from God’s anchor)”. It means to “lapse” into spiritual defeat, describing how we slowly move away from our moorings in Christ.”

Friends, stay moored to Christ. He is our anchor. One day, ourfaith will become sight and we will see Him as He is.

Though our journey is tense, and long, imagine the sweet relief we will feel when we get there! When all storms are over, and there are no more hidden reefs. The empty clouds deceive us no more, and our friends and family’s spiritual shipwrecks (so hard to watch!) are but a distant memory gentle Christ wipes from our mind. The sweetness and rest awaiting us beside the glassy sea is unimaginably wondrous. Rest in that assurance 🙂

Here is “Christ the Sure and Steady Anchor” performed by Matt Papa, Matt Boswell, Keith & Kristyn Getty-