I’ve got a friend who used to have a boat. It was a great boat. An 18ft Doral Bowrider. It had a purple stripe around it. I think that made it fast. Maybe not. It seems to me though that purple on a boat says fast. On a car, not so much. But on a boat, it says fast.
We spent every Sunday afternoon on that boat from the minute the seasons changed and the weather permitted it. As soon as church let out, we’d be changed, grabbing lunch, and heading to the river. Water-skiing, tubing, and relaxing. That was the order of the day.
I’ve got a lot of happy memories of a lot of great Sunday afternoons with good friends in that boat. I hit a cow driving that boat once. It wasn’t alive at the time, but it was definitely a cow. That’s another story for another blog though. I will say this, if you’re ever driving a boat at 40 mph, I strongly advise you to not hit a cow! I also lost my bathing suit while tubing once. Again, another story for another blog. Let’s just say that if the draw-string hadn’t got hooked on my big toe… I would’ve been coming out of the water stark naked! If you’ve ever questioned the existence of God, I assure you that every person in the boat believed in Him that day! Only the God that created the heavens and the earth would love my friends enough for them to not have to see me get out of the water naked.
I like to think that God has put me here for a purpose. I don’t mean here in the sense of sitting in my red chair from Ikea, drinking a tall cool glass of water, writing this blog. I’m talking more in the cosmic sense. Big picture I suppose. People ask me what I do in my apartment when I’m all alone. I like to tell them I contemplate the meaning of my existence. It seems to me that if God did in fact put me here for a purpose, then I would be well served to discover it and get working on it.
Last night I got woke up for a fire call. I have a bit of a sleeping disorder, so once I’m awake, it’s not easy for me to fall back asleep. Especially after putting out a fire. I got home from the call around 2am. As I laid in bed staring at the ceiling, I started doing some of that contemplating. You know, about the meaning and purpose of my existence and all.
When I talk to God I like to talk out loud. It makes Him feel more real to me. Like He’s sitting there in the room with me, maybe on my weight bench, and we’re just hanging out having a conversation. So I was asking Him about my purpose last night. I was just curious if I was on track, or if I needed to think about some changes. I know it sounds crazy, like I’m certifiable or something. But really, I think God is cool with us talking to Him about these kind of things.
In the midst of our little chat, I got to thinking about the anchor on our boat. I don’t know why. I hadn’t been thinking about the boat at all. Then out of nowhere, I’m thinking about the anchor. It’s funny thing, the anchor on a boat. I was always impressed by how something so small can hold something so big. I mean, the boat was 18ft and the anchor was maybe 10 inches across at the most. But it held us.
Anchors are an interesting paradox to me. If you’re talking about a person who is an anchor, for example, it’s someone that is reliable. Somebody that you can count on. My old Fire Department used to do tug-a-war competitions with other fire halls. The guy that anchored our team was like an oak tree. You didn’t move him. Well, maybe with a forklift or something. An anchor is stability. He gave the team that!
Back to the boat though, the anchor held us. When we found a place where we wanted to stop on the river, we’d turn the boat off and drop anchor. Our little 10″ anchor would lower to the river bed and catch, and we were parked. We could stretch out, catch some rays or jump in the water and take a swim. Regardless, we knew the boat wasn’t going anywhere. It was stable.
I didn’t really understand what this had to do with the purpose of my existence. Then I got to thinking about the whole anchor paradox thing. Anchors provide stability. But anchors also hold things. Do you get it? Maybe not. Let me see if I can explain this a little better. When we wanted to park the boat, we’d drop the anchor. But when we were ready to move the boat again, we needed to lift the anchor.
It’s good to have things in our life that provide us with stability. Those can be a lot of different things I suppose. Family, in my opinion, would be among the top of the list. Good friends, a good church, even a good job. All of those things can provide us with stability. They are like anchors that are keeping us grounded. On the flip side of that are things that can weigh us down when we should be moving forward. The anchors that we need to get out of the water before we can set sail again.
Sometimes things hold us back from doing what we’re supposed to be doing. Like an anchor though, it could just be something small. Something we may not notice. Something we may not think of. Something we may be well aware of, but have just ignored. Before we can start working on our purpose, before we can “set sail”, we need to weigh anchor.
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