An Anchor (It’s Not a Square Peg)

When I was a kid, I didn’t really understand any of the things shown to me in the Bible. I was too young, and I really just didn’t care to understand, to be honest. Let’s face it, I was a kid. Years later, however, after finally understanding and accepting Christ, I began to see Scripture for the truth it is, and time and again I could see God’s faithfulness shine through those powerful words, from beginning to end.

Over time, I began to truly see Jesus in Scripture, learning the reality that Jesus is indeed the Word of God John 1:1-3, and statements such as “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me,” John 14:6 began to make more sense when I understood that no one can come to know God the Father except through “the Word of God.” And that the “Word of God” is the way, and the truth, and the life.

This may seem like elementary thinking, but I continually find that many don’t understand that correlation. For me, this has become the most important revelation, for only through this understanding can I truly know Jesus. My relationship with him grows closer as I allow myself to be drawn into his Word.

Throughout the years, however, there have often been bits of text that seemed to be unclear, or that others have offered as “contradictions,” bringing legitimate questions to light. For example, there are many who offer the “science” of history to show that dinosaurs lived beyond the history of man, which, when ungrounded in truth, raises the eyebrow. So how can I reconcile such a thing?

Well, as I’ve remarked in Dragons and Dinosaurs, once I’ve set God’s Word as the foundation that it is, I am able to hold such questions against that light. And whenever I start there, God reveals to me the problem: I started with a false premise, which lead me to or allowed me to believe false conclusions.

In my dinosaur example, it didn’t take long to learn that carbon-dating is significantly flawed, and that such technology is incapable of dating anything older than 50,000 years. But instead of developing a philosophy or view that “aligned” with the world, I did a little digging, and a bit of reading. While I’d read the book of Job several times before, and had been familiar with the terms leviathan and behemoth, I had only read through them casually in the past, not having given credence to the words I was reading.

But because this time I’d asked God a question, he revealed to me his answer in the same place it had always been. And this time, when I read about these magnificent animals, he was showing me that they were contemporary to the world of Job. And instead of looking at the Bible through the lens of the world, I really began seeing the world through the eyes of the Bible. Put another way, instead of seeing the Creator through the eyes of the world, I began seeing the world through the eyes of the Creator, Jesus.

My point here is that I occasionally come across something in my Bible that makes me scratch my head. Something that appears to be a square peg that just doesn’t fit properly in the puzzle of Scripture. In the old days, I would just move past it and try not to give it much thought. For any disruption in the flow of God’s Word seemed too much a distraction, and something to avoid.

But eventually, my desire to know the truth would drive me to pursue it, and to pursue him. It was as if he was asking me to know him more, by going beneath the surface. He was encouraging me to go deeper; he wanted me to change my perspective.

Over time, I learned how to discard my assumptions—or things I’d heard or read—and just read it again. Dig around and investigate… And time and again, I have found that what I thought was a square peg wasn’t square at all. It just looked square because it was covered and contaminated with all the myths, suggestions and false teachings it had collected over the years.

And just like an archaeologist who must work carefully and diligently to uncover the truth of what lies beneath the surface, sometimes buried quite deep, I will finally see it. And the coolest part is that this occurs through no power of my own. God brings me along on the adventure, but he’s the archaeologist, knocking off the junk from that misshapen piece and showing me that it was never square at all. And as he brushes it clean, he holds it high in the air for me to see. Then he brings it down, lays it in my hands and says, “See? You didn’t understand it because you couldn’t see what I see. I created it. I spoke it. And it makes perfect sense.”

It certainly does. The piece fits perfectly, and it brings to life that part with which I thought there was conflict. Moreover, when he does this, he demonstrates his faithfulness. Each time he reveals another truth to me, it becomes another anchor in my faith and trust in him. He never stops showing himself faithful to me, regardless of how I reciprocate.

He relentlessly pursues a relationship with me. He’s not a mere king who is enslaved to his throne, but a loving father who adores me, who chose me. I am not an accident that he’s stuck with, I was adopted on purpose, to be his child.

For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ. Ephesians 1:4-5

I walk at his side, because he walks with me. And each time I wander off, he doesn’t leave me to fend for myself and forget about me. Not at all! He steps down from his throne and chases me, no matter where I go, he’s there. And each time I turn my head to see if he’s watching, I find that he’s walking right behind me.

When I read Hebrews 11 (subtitled “Faith in Action”), each example the author provides of an individual’s faith, I can see how their faith was not unfounded. There is never a discussion of “blind faith,” but faith in God established over time through relationship. Abram didn’t blindly go when God called him to leave his homeland, but acted in accordance with the trust God had already established with Abram in their relationship before that time. That trust, built on examples of God’s faithfulness, gave Abram the faith required to pack up his entire family and follow God’s lead.

Even Rahab’s faith was not unwarranted. Surely she had grown up her entire life having heard of the reputation of the Israelites and what their God had done to bring them out of Egypt. For 40 years the story of the Israelites had been told. God was legendary. His reputation had preceded him, and so her faith was not without foundation.

And when Jesus walked along the Sea of Galilee to call Andrew, Simon Peter, James and John, “they left their nets at once and followed him.” Mark 1:16-20. But this wasn’t the first they’d met Jesus. They’d been hearing him preach for quite some time. They were already his disciples by that time see John 1:35-50, and Jesus was only calling them to full-time ministry. They jumped at the chance.

God continues to present himself to me in these ways. He continues to show me his love by doing things for me that have his clear signature, just to let me know he’s near. I can trust in the promises of God because he’s long since proven that he is trustworthy! The entire Old Testament testifies to his faithfulness, and Jesus fulfilled that promise in the New.

Everything that the gospel writers recorded Jesus said and did testify to the same God, the same promise, and his same faithfulness. Now, I’ve been told that there is only one place in the Bible where God invites us to test him:

Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the LORD Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it. Malachi 3:10

But I would challenge that and say that this is another request to test:

Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” John 8:31-32

What Jesus says here is, “Test me in this. Try living out these principles and then tell me they’re not true!” For every time I do what’s right, every time I act in obedience to his Word—no, nothing magical happens, but something significant does: I’m able to see that the Spirit of God is active within me, and I can see that what God’s Word says is true.

As a result, I am truly free to “run in the path of his commands” Psalm 119:32, because the “boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places” Psalm 16:6 and I can see clearly the road marked out for me, and am invited to live freely within those boundaries. When I live outside that pleasant place, I live in fear of the consequences of my choices, having already proven (many times over) that my way doesn’t work.

And so, every act of his faithfulness truly becomes an anchor for my soul, and a nail in the coffin of Satan’s efforts against me.