The Anchor of My Soul

A Devotional by Margot Cioccio

Hebrews 6:19 -20  

^"This hope we have 

as an anchor of the soul, 

both sure and steadfast, 

and which enters 

the Presence behind the veil,

²⁰ where the forerunner 

has entered for us,  

even Jesus, having become 

High Priest forever 

according to the order 

of Melchizedek."

There are mornings when I struggle to find my voice. I feel like a boat a drift and and my mind wanders trying to find the rope that is attached to the anchor of my soul. This morning I was reading from Galatians the Lord seems to lead me there often to remind me that the focus of my life is not based upon doing good things or bad things but simply in believing in Jesus. It is His righteousness not my own that allows me to enter the presence of the Father.  Then I spent some time reading a chapter from The Sacred Romance by John Eldredge. I am reminded by him how lesser stories and lesser lovers all vie for my time and attention. He talks of how when we are not busy doing that we struggle to rest. " I have made my home in you, ____. But you still have other comforters you go to. You must learn to make your home in me."   He goes on to write " It also dawned on me that holiness, surprisingly, also comes not out of doing but out of staying at home, with who and where we are and with who and where God is in us. Indeed, we will only have the courage to leave home and continue to live as pilgrims out on the road if we have some sense that our true home abides within us in the Spirit of Christ and that we can do the same with him. And in the meantime, out of this abiding, Jesus transforms us. Our identity begins to coalesce, not out of doing, but out of living with a good friend for a number of years and simply finding we have become more like him. " (page 166-7)

I am glad God gives me these things to remind me that while I may feel like I am drifting, there is an anchor tied to Him. So in the midst of my morning I have found my voice. The enemy of my soul would like to tell me I have nothing of value to write or say and perhaps he says similar things to you. I suppose on one level it is true because apart from Jesus there is really not much to tell.  Yet of Jesus, I will not be silent. His relationship with me and with you is one of epoch proportions. It is a grand story of a King who would leave his home and journey to find those who had lost their way and were trapped, and chained and tortured by evil masters. Yet He comes and He reaches out to us and says "will you believe, will you take my hand and walk with me. Will you let me transform you, and give your life purpose and meaning and be defined by who you are in me?"  That is a story that I love to tell.  

So I have grouped around in the early morning darkness and found the rope or the chain that is attached to the anchor that reaches beyond this earth to my home in Jesus. It is there that I find rest, it is there that doing stops and simply being and abiding begins.  

Prayer:
Dear Lord, 
Help us to know that the anchor of our soul is secure in you. That when the voices and the clamor of this life try to tell us that we are lost, out of control, drifting or valueless. That we will know that even when you were asleep in the boat with the disciples and the wind and the waves threatened and caused them to become fearful. You were in the boat and you spoke and calmed the storm.  So Lord in your name, and by your authority I speak to those storms and tell them to be still. I speak to myself and I say Be still, know that God is with you, that he is for you, that he will not abandon you. That he loves you and delights to be with you. I pray that His epoch story of love would rise up in you and that the mental and emotional fog would lift and you would be able to feel the sunshine of His love and presence as you walk through this day.