Question: Who is/what is your spiritual anchor?

Intro: Recently my father-in-law died. He was, for me and others, one of the godliest people we have ever known. “Papa,” as we called him, was funny, self-effacing, humble, and the embodiment of a servant-leader. He led spiritually but he did not do so in an overbearing, ostentatious way. You just sensed when you were with him that he was a man comfortable in his own skin because he was anchored in someone and something greater than himself.

The Rubber Meeting the Road: When Papa died, I watched my wife’s prayer life deepen as never before. She has, ever since we’ve been married, been a stalwart woman of prayer. But when Papa was declining and eventually died, she turned ever more to the anchor of her soul: Christ. She would write down her prayers in a journal. She would list how they were answered. She was specific in her spiritual discipline. None of the vague spirituality you hear so much about which is often a pastiche of secular psychology, bubblegum bromides, and sentimentality. No amount of sloganeering is sufficient to speak to the deepest longings in our lives. We require answers. And who is sufficient to answer? Where, in other words, do we turn for our spiritual anchor?

Segue: Religious Support (RS) is what we call it in the Army. When GEN Washington stood up the Chaplain Corps immediately after the Infantry in our nation’s earliest days, he understood that a Soldier’s core, his soul, must be anchored to something steadfast and sure in order to endure and prevail. If he is unanchored, he will atrophy. Why? Because he is trying to build upon sand. And if you’ve watched the sands under your feet when you’re at the beach, you know why that image is so powerful. You put your toes in the sand one moment, and then that sand is replaced by other sand, and on and on continually. Flux amidst all the flotsam and jetsam.

Encouragement: In my faith and worldview, we are told throughout Scripture in whom we are to ultimately trust as our anchor: “The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. I call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised, and I am saved from my enemies” (Psalm 18:2-3, ESV). And in the New Testament, we are again reminded of the same wisdom. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 10:4 that it is none other than Christ Himself who was and is the “spiritual Rock.” Folks, I don’t know about you, but I want to rest on the immovable; I want an anchor for my soul, not shifting sands. Our prayers should be that we know the Rock, the anchor of the soul.