As children, my sister and I often took fishing excursions with our father. He loved to take his small boat to the nearby lake to fish for bass, bream, or crappie. He sometimes caught the undesirable catfish, but he loved the serenity of the lake and the ability to commune with nature—especially if we girls kept our code of silence.
One day, he failed to drop his anchor. My sister had become lost in her book, I daydreamed, and my father took a short snooze because the fish were not biting. But a loud thump made us realize we had drifted into a marshy, muddy inlet.
To extricate ourselves and Daddy’s boat, we had to use both oars and muster muscle power we didn’t know we had. When we returned home, we discovered our failure to use the anchor had caused our boat to be caked with mud and marred with scratches that would require much cleaning and repair work.
Charles Martin uses the anchor analogy in his book They Turned the World Upside Down. His purpose is to encourage readers to become more like Christ’s disciples, who devoted themselves to spreading the gospel after His death.
Society has drifted away from God like “a rudderless boat absent its anchor.” We find ourselves lost in muddy waters when we let go of that hope. Our lives can easily drift into dangerous places. We become mired, muddy, scratched, and full of sin. Unless our eyes remain focused on Jesus, our wanderings can cause us to lose the secure footing He provides.
If you have drifted away from God, ask Him to be your anchor so that He can remove the sin and scratches from your life.
After teaching high school English for over thirty years, Joyce McCullough now spends her time writing children’s books. She also enjoys tutoring, teaching piano lessons, teaching Sunday school, and doing volunteer work. She has written for numerous faith-based publications including Alive, The Cumberland Presbyterian, The Missionary Messenger, and Focus on the Family’s Early Stages. She has received numerous awards and recognition both as a writer and as an educator. For more information, visit her website, The Literary Lyonesse, at joycemccullough.com.