Dear Friends,
Twenty years ago, Mary K and I along with my then seventeen-year daughter, Alyssa, spent a week in a lakeside cabin located in Western Kentucky in the middle of Pennyrile State Resort. We arrived at 2:30pm on a Monday, stowed our gear, and I fished much of the time from then until we left on Friday morning.
I don’t know how many of you have ever fished from a canoe, but one man in a large canoe with a high wind leaves a lot to be desired! The canoe was pretty much blown wherever the wind wanted it to go until I put a one-hundred-pound rock in the bow to hold it down. Early one afternoon, while anchored near an outcropping of granite rock, casting my bait into the mouth of a half-submerged cave, I heard, “Hey Mister!” I looked up and there were two very country fifteen-year-old boys paddling a paddle boat in my direction. “Can we borrow some bait?” one of them shouted. “Come on over,” was my reply as I pulled a handful of big night crawlers out of my bait box. As the nearest boy took the worms from me, the youngster on the other side asks,” Do you have any cigarettes?” This really took me by surprise, and it was a couple of seconds before I replied, “I’ll bet that you didn’t expect to paddle all of the way over here to ask a preacher for some cigarettes, did you?”
Now sitting in the middle of a secluded lake in Western Kentucky with my shirt off is probably the last place that I would have thought about the always covered, thirty-nine-year-old tattoo that adorns most of my upper right arm, (Picture an eighteen-year-old sailor going home for leave after spending his first year in the Navy. I got a big rose for $12.00, and the old tattoo artist named Paul Rogers threw in a “Mom” for free!) But the next thing that I heard really brought home how fragile our witness is to others. “You can’t be a preacher, Mister, you’ve got a tattoo!” The wind was picking up, and the paddle boat blew down the lake, ending any opportunity that there might be to share Jesus with these two. I heard a shouted question. “You aren’t going to tell that we asked for cigarettes, are you?” “Your Father in Heaven already knows everything that you boys do.” I replied, “Nothing is hidden from God!” Woe to those who seek deep to hide their counsel far from the LORD, And their works are in the dark; They say, “Who sees us?” and, “Who knows us?” (Isaiah 29:15)
With that the paddle boat was gone; I’m certain to the relief of the two teenagers riding it.
Mary K later reminded me that this was just like many people who let the winds of life push them away from God. During the inevitable tough times that everyone faces in life, all men, women, and even children must make the decision either to anchor up and stay within earshot of their Creator, or spend their own strength with the oars and drift out of range of His words that would save them so much heartache and despair.
I’ll never forget a long night spent on the 31’9” BHM, the “Sea Wolf” about forty-five miles off Georgetown, SC during a nasty storm. With over 600 feet of anchor line out it looked like we could see 550 feet of scope every time a large wave smashed into the bow of the boat. A forty-knot wind shrieked around us all during the sleepless night as we worked to keep the bilge pumps running. When dawn finally broke, the anchor still held, and the storm had abated. “This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the Presence behind the veil, where the forerunner has entered for us, even Jesus, having become High Priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.” (Hebrew 6:19-20)
What is the “Anchor” of your soul tonight? Is it your hope in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, or are you still trying to keep your drifting boat afloat by yourself? God loves you so much that he already has prepared a safe harbor for you. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16) My friends, there is nothing quite as reassuring as feeling a drifting boat swing gently around and coming to a stop as her anchor bites firmly into hard bottom.
In His Grip,
Will Dallas