OnFire Encouragement Letter

Hi Folks!

Not much news to share this week, other than each week seems to go by so quickly. I turn around and another one is gone. I've stepped up writing for the book and have discovered just how hard writing more than a few hundred words at a time can be. I figure I have about 2/3 of chapter 1 in a rough state. I need at least two polished chapters for a proposal. Its taken me 20-25 hours to get this far, so its not hard to do the math.... a long way to go yet considering I do this in my spare time.

Have a good week

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Anchors are generally good things. I have one in my little boat and it comes in handy to hold myself at one spot while I'm fishing or swimming (from the boat, that it is - I suppose it would hold me in place while I was swimming, but that's not usually the idea unless we owe money to the mafia:)

Anchors come in different shapes and sizes. I use a "Danforth" type which has fins which flip over to dig in. Many sailing boats use a "plough" type anchor, which looks like an old-fashioned two-sided farm plough. Mushroom anchors look like, you guessed it, a mushroom, except that it is upside down. These hold well in mud. My friend has a folding "grappling" anchor for his canoe.

The bigger the boat, the bigger the anchor needs to be. I have a 4lb anchor for my rowboat and canoe. An appropriate anchor can hold a very large boat. I have pictures somewhere of an anchor that came from a ferry that broke lose from the dock during a storm while we were on Grand Manan. An officer was able to start the engines and drop anchor to ride it out. Afterward extensive damage had to be repaired, including the winch and the anchor. The anchor I saw weighted tons, but had its fins and shaft bent back, attesting to the force of nature. Even still, it held the ship.

Anchors are good for ships, bad for us (see the swimming example above). We have been looking at the characters in the book of Mark. For several weeks we looked at Jesus' command to "follow me." Some followed Jesus, people like Andrew and Simon, James and John, Levi, Philip. Not everyone did, however. For a few weeks we're going to look at the people who did not follow. Three men couldn't or wouldn't let go of the anchors which held them from going with Jesus.

Case #1 was a "rich young ruler." He was interested in Jesus, but Jesus sensed there was something holding him back. He nailed it on the head when he told him, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me." (Matthew 19:21; Mark 10:21; Luke 18:22). It was too much for the man and so he left.

We can't follow Jesus without letting go of the anchors which hold our souls. For the rich young man it was his wealth. He was afraid to leave it behind to follow Jesus. Not that wealth is necessarily bad, but it may hold the soul and make it impossible to follow Jesus.

If I were to ask, "Does money hold you back from following Jesus more closely?" most people would say "no." We're not wealthy. We don't need financial abundance, however, for money to be an anchor for the soul.

A few years ago I went into a bit of a funk which lasted about a month. It was December. Money was very tight, and not just because of Christmas since Jan tends to spread out shopping for gifts over the year. In any case, I went into this funk wondering if it was always going to be this way. Would it always be so hard? While I knew God would always make sure we had what we needed, I hoped for a few other things as well and it seemed like some of those dreams were sailing away. To make what could be a long story much shorter, I was frustrated and weighed down.

What broke the funk? I went out with the boys to cut a Christmas tree. In the middle of it all I was still thinking clearly about the boys and wanted to give them a memory of going out to find a tree. We found a pine tree about the right size and shape, cut it and dragged it home. Originally it was intended for the basement rec room, but somehow we decided to put it up in the living room. Well, let's just say it wasn't the prettiest tree around. We still joke about the year of the Charlie Brown tree. To this day I can't explain it, but there was something about that homely tree which God used to bring hope back again. But this time it wasn't hope for the things I had wanted before. It was hope in the future, pure and simple.

Money can represent dreams and the future, and we don't need to be a rich, young, or a ruler, to have those. Money became an anchor for my soul when I hoped in it to fulfill my dreams. I discovered I couldn't hold the anchor and go with Jesus. I could hold the anchor and be frustrated, or go with Jesus and trust he would lead me to fulfilment.

I hope this helps. Be Onfire.

Troy