Walking With Christ

Hebrews 11:1  Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.(ESV)

Christians speak about faith constantly.

We’re told to have faith, walk by faith, pray in faith, and remain faithful.  When something goes wrong, someone may tell us that we simply need more faith.  When something goes well, we may conclude that our faith was strong enough.

However, faith is often reduced to little more than believing strongly that something will happen.

That can’t be the whole meaning.

A person can believe something with complete sincerity and still be completely wrong.  Someone can place enormous trust in a person who is lying to them.  They can move forward with absolute confidence while heading directly toward destruction.

The strength of our belief can’t make a false thing true.

The intensity of our trust can’t make an untrustworthy person faithful.

The more important question isn’t merely whether we have faith.

The question is:  Where is your anchor?

Everyone attaches their life to something.

Some people trust themselves.  Others place their confidence in money, political power, religious institutions, education, personal experience, or the approval of others.  Some trust only what they can see, measure, explain, or control.

Even those who claim to have no faith still organize their lives around something they believe to be reliable.

Faith isn’t merely an idea we hold in our minds.  It’s the living connection through which we remain attached and oriented to the reality governing our lives.

That’s why the object of our faith matters more than the confidence with which we hold it.

A strong rope tied to a rotten post won’t save the person hanging from it.  The rope may be secure.  The knot may be flawless.  The person may be completely convinced that it will hold.

However, the strength of the attachment can’t make the object trustworthy.

This is one reason an anchor is such a useful picture.

A foundation assumes that everything remains still.  An anchor exists because movement is expected.

The wind will rise.  The current will pull.  Darkness will make direction difficult to see.  A ship at anchor may still move, turn, rise, and fall with the water, but it remains oriented around the place to which it has been secured.

Movement isn’t always the same thing as separation.

Fear isn’t always the same thing as faithlessness.

Struggle doesn’t automatically mean that the connection has been lost.

Peter demonstrated this when Jesus called him out of the boat.

Matthew 14:28–31  (28)And Peter answered him, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.”  (29)He said, “Come.”  So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus.  (30)But when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, “Lord, save me.”  (31)Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him, saying to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?”(ESV)

Peter didn’t step onto the water because he had developed enough confidence in himself.  He stepped out because Christ said, “Come.”

The authority wasn’t in Peter’s courage.  It was in the word of Jesus.

For a moment, Peter walked upon something that couldn’t naturally support him.  Then he noticed the wind.

The wind was real.  The waves were real.  Faith didn’t require Peter to pretend that the storm didn’t exist.

His trouble began when the storm became more authoritative to him than the word and presence of Christ.

Peter didn’t suddenly deny that Jesus was standing before him.  He didn’t forget who had called him out of the boat.  He didn’t lose every trace of faith.

His orientation became divided.

Christ had spoken, but the storm was shouting.

The danger became more immediate than the One who had called him.

Peter didn’t deny that Christ was there.  He allowed the storm to become the more controlling reality.

Even then, Peter remained connected enough to cry out, “Lord, save me.”

Jesus did.

There’s something deeply important in that moment.

Peter’s faith was real, but it was destabilized under pressure.  His fear didn’t make Christ less present.  His sinking didn’t make Christ less able to save.  The weakness of Peter’s grip didn’t weaken the hand that reached for him.

That doesn’t make Peter’s divided attention harmless.  Jesus confronted his doubt.  But He did so after catching him.

Many of us think we know where our faith rests until the wind rises.

It’s easy to say that God is our provider when the account is full.  It’s easy to say that God is our healer when the diagnosis is distant. It’s easy to say that Christ is enough when we are surrounded by approval, stability, and visible options.

Pressure exposes what actually governs us.

When circumstances become frightening, what voice becomes most authoritative?

When obedience carries a cost, what do we trust to preserve us?

When God’s word conflicts with what we can see, which one is permitted to define reality?

The storm doesn’t need to convince us that Christ is absent.  It only needs to become more controlling than His presence.

This is how drift begins.

Hebrews 2:1  Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it.(ESV)

Drift is rarely announced.  It happens slowly as attention, confidence, and obedience are pulled toward something else.

We may still speak the language of faith.  We may still affirm the truth of Scripture.  We may still know that Christ is there.

Yet our decisions begin to reveal that something else has become more real to us.

Money becomes more reliable than God’s provision.

Fear becomes more authoritative than God’s command.

The approval of others becomes more valuable than obedience.

What we can see becomes more trustworthy than the One who called us.

The answer isn’t to deny the wind.

The answer isn’t to manufacture stronger emotions or pretend that we’re never afraid.

The answer is to return our attention to the One who spoke.

Peter didn’t save himself by staring harder at the water.  He was saved by Christ.

The same Jesus who called Peter out of the boat was the One who caught him when his faith faltered.  Christ didn’t become less faithful when Peter became unstable.

Our security has never depended upon our ability to remain emotionally unmoved by every storm.

It depends upon the One to whom we are attached.

The wind will reveal what we trust.  Pressure will expose what governs us.  The current will test whether our confidence rests in Christ or merely in circumstances that once made faith feel easy.

So, the question isn’t simply whether you believe.

It isn’t even how strongly you believe.

The question is what you’ve trusted with the weight of your life.

When the wind rises, what becomes more real to you than the word of Christ?

Where is your anchor?