How Did I Get Here?نموونە

Now that I know it’s possible to drift unaware, that drifting doesn’t happen all at once but over time, and that small drifts in our day-to-day actions can produce great shifts, I’ve built in the practice of taking a personal inventory on a regular basis to prevent it from happening again. I am paying closer attention than ever before. To my personal relationship with God. To what’s going on in my heart. And where I’m placing my trust. To my family, friends, and colleagues. As Solomon wrote, it’s the little foxes that undermine our relationship with God—the things we might not notice, that seem small, invisible, undetected.

About my relationship with God, I ask:

• Have I stopped pursuing God and started deprioritizing my time with Him?
• Have I stopped consuming God’s Word and started living off leftovers?
• Have I stopped responding to the Spirit at once and started delaying?
• Have I stopped caring and started growing callous about former convictions?
• Have I stopped praying and started obsessing?
• Have I stopped seeking more of Him?

And about my relationships with others, I ask:

• Have I stopped forgiving and started harboring?
• Have I stopped sharing and started withholding?
• Have I stopped committing and started shrinking back?
• Have I stopped laughing and started growing more critical?
• Have I stopped responding with grace and started responding with impatience?

And about my heart, I ask:

• Have I stopped having passion and started having resentment?
• Have I stopped dreaming and started settling?
• Have I stopped hoping and started sinking into despair?
• Have I stopped feeling and started growing numb?

I have discovered—from making this list and digging into God’s Word—that there are a multitude of ways to drift, but there is only one way not to, and that is to drop—and set—our anchor. With so much change in motion, there is only one anchor I know that can hold us steady in such shifting currents. His name is Jesus.

God sent us a savior—Jesus, this hope—as the anchor for our souls. But kept inside the boat, inside the grasp of our control, our anchor does us no good. Hope does what it was meant to when we simply trust Jesus and leave our anchor to do his work. Even when we feel the currents swirling around us, forcefully wanting to move us, we don’t have to give in. Yes, our hope will always be tested—it doesn’t change the condition of the sea—but to let go of Jesus, the anchor of our soul, to quit trusting, to become distracted, to lose sight of what’s holding us in place, will only set us adrift once more.