Steadfast and Sure
Hope can be both the most wonderful thing and also dangerous. Hope can be extremely dangerous when the thing or event you are hoping for is uncertain or unattainable. When you place your hopes in something that is unlikely or that is continually removed from you it completely demoralizes you and tears up your character from the inside out. However, when you place your hope in something steadfast and sound it can pull you through the most difficult and challenging of times. The hard part is discovering something that is unwavering.
This last Monday I called the moving company. This is my normal routine, I typically call them twice a week, once on Monday the other on Thursday. You all are aware of the predictable run-around we get on the phone. But this week, the conversation was different, when I called this week they informed me it was loaded on a truck. In disbelief I corrected the dispatcher, “You mean it will be loaded this week?” They insisted it was already loaded and that it would be arriving in 10 days. It seemed incredible, too good to be true, after all of this time there was progress. But hope in something unsure is dangerous. These ne’er-do-wells have wronged us before and have practiced dishonest measures, how much can we believe them? Yet, we can’t help but get our hopes up, there is a glimmer of a possibility that our furniture and personal treasures might one day be reunited.
This is all in sharp contrast to the hope we all have as Christians. The writer/preacher of Hebrews explains it this way:
Hebrews 6:17-20
“So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, 18 so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. 19 We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, 20 where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.”
We are told that our hope is different. Our hope is first attached to God’s promise and oath, these two entities are constant because of the character of God (He cannot lie). The author of Hebrews goes one step further to illustrate this point, he draws the analogy of a ship at sea. Anchors would have been a well-known implement; and most individuals would have understood that an anchor is only as good as the ground it is secured to. The analogy can be explained in this way: imagine you are a ship tossed at sea and you need something to cling to, we know the most immovable and steadfast reality is rooted in God. The writer goes on to say that being in Christ is as if Jesus picked up your anchor walked back behind the curtain to where God resides and firmly attached your anchor to Him. There is now no wavering or shifting of your hope. It is securely affixed to the most stable personage, God.
Steadfast and sure.