Anchored

[Jesus said,] “Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.”

John 16:33

Jesus never sugarcoated the truth. We can expect real difficulties in this life. He did not promise to take away our problems, but he did promise to take the poison out of their sting.

His life in us does not make us immune to pain or disappointment, but Jesus does make us indestructible. When we encounter the difficulties of this life, big or small, we have a new prism through which to view them. We have a new confidence in which to face them. And we have a new power with which to tackle them, because Jesus has overcome every problem we face. Before it gets to us, he has already declawed and defanged it.

That problem, challenge, sorrow, or disappointment has been weighed in his balance. When the glory it will bring outweighs the pain it will cause, only then does it reach your experience. Even those difficulties have been filtered through his sieve so that anything that would destroy you has been strained out. The enemy’s plan to weaken and discourage you blows up in his face when Jesus steps in with his overcoming might. He strips sorrow of its gale-force winds and turns a hurricane of heartache into a common windstorm. Fierce, perhaps, until we compare it to what was forecast. In every storm we are anchored, safe and immovable, in Jesus.

Has a storm hit? Take heart. He has overcome, and your moorings will hold. That’s a promise. With Paul, you can testify, “We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed” (2 Corinthians 4:8-9).

Anchor me in you. Life’s storms will not sweep me away, because in you I am unshakable and immovable.

Every tear of sorrow sown by the righteous springs up a pearl.

Matthew Henry(1662–1714), English pastor and Bible commentator