Whoever you are as a reader, I am sure you know that life can be tough. Work troubles, relationship troubles, financial troubles, death, unexpected life, and so on can all be challenges that each person will face to varying degrees.

You may know that, but I want you to know this. There can be a more powerful foundation to ground you in those times than motivational office posters and Kenny Chesney lines that echo some version of, “That’s why they call the present the present.”

As a Christian writer, you know I am going to say some repetitive phrases as well, like “Jesus is the answer!”

You see? We know a lot about each other. We can finish each other’s sentences from afar. Nonetheless, let me tell you why Jesus is the answer. First of all, it is true that He died, was buried, and rose again for your salvation. YES! AMEN! Believe and be saved!

But then, so many more things happen, such as He secures you (Ephesians 1:13). But I do not want you to think of secure as locked away, although yes, you can not be found in anyone else from that moment on. Think of a buoy in the ocean or an anchor to a ship. They may shift, rock, drift, and sometimes be lost behind the waves, but when the seas calm and the waves settle, they did not stray further than their original location.

An old hymn rejoices,  

When darkness veils his lovely face,
I rest on his unchanging grace;
in every high and stormy gale,
my anchor holds within the veil.

The word veil used here is not referring to a storm but the veil or curtain that separated the Holy of Holies (The most sacred location of the temple where only consecrated priests could enter) and the Holy Place. This hymn alludes to such a place necessary for the Israelites to be made right with God. Hebrews 6:19 states, “Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that within the veil.”

As beautiful as this image is, our anchor stands firm in the concrete foundation of Jesus Christ. Yea, all who are in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution, but in the rocky boat of life, we will never stray too far from safety as the Gospel of Christ holds our spirit firm (2 Timothy 3:12). The anchor holds and yes, the present is the present, but the greatest present of all is the Blessed Hope with which we stay tethered and secured to until Christ’s salvific return for us (Titus 2:13).