2 Tools Men Need to Weather Life's Storms
This essay started as a video musing
Men need two tools for times like these. The sad part is most of us don’t know what they are, or we never learn how to use them.
What do I mean by times like these?
When I was a kid, I used to love making Kool-Aid in the summertime. I would dump the mix in the pitcher of water and get a wooden spoon. Then I’d turn the spoon around to make a whirlpool in that little pitcher.
And just as I got a nice vortex, I would suddenly switch the spoon’s direction. I wanted to feel that resistance and, honestly, to feel a little powerful by making a storm in my sugar water.
Now, imagine that you’re an ant in that pitcher. That’s what the last few years have felt like for many of us nobodies.
It feels like a manufactured storm. As if everything is up for grabs. Somebody’s moving the currents, and you don’t have much control.
Cultural, environmental, political, even biblical upheavals have rocked us in the first quarter of this century. It’s so obvious that you’ve probably heard more people talking about the end times than ever.
And maybe it is that giant biblical shift. I’m not convinced of that. But at the very least, it’s a change in the cultural and historical times akin to the fall of empires or technological revolutions.
With rapid change, it’s no wonder the world has felt like a storm.
But a simple understanding of the past tells me it’s not that bad yet. The world has seen worse storms than we went through in 2020 and beyond. And we’re likely to see worse storms again. We just don’t know when.
But we all feel as if doom hangs over our heads, like the iconic words of Bogart in Casablanca,
“Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life.”
The question is, what do we do? What can we as—let’s be honest, average nobodies—do to be prepared and survive those storms?
Because another simple understanding of history reveals that people of faith, the church itself, have survived because nobodies weathered the storms.
Sailors have two options when weather turns foul, and they have a tool, depending on which option they choose. The first is an anchor. The other is a compass.
If there’s a squall on the horizon and maybe your boat can’t handle it, you find a safe harbor and drop anchor. You sit that storm out trying to stay put and let the landscape protect you.
But if you’re a bit more seaworthy, or if the storm might wreck the entire port, you may opt to ride the wind and waves. That’s when you need the compass to keep your bearings and not end up lost at sea.
We need both tools. Otherwise, you don’t have options.
So, if the world feels like a storm, what’s our anchor? What’s our compass?
The Anchor
Hebrews 6:19 points to this. “We have this hope as an anchor for our souls, firm and secure.” What is that hope the author’s talking about?
The complete passage (chapter 5 & 6) talks about how Christ endured suffering because of the hope he was given. Logically, then, we can endure sufferings with the hope we’re given.
What is that hope? It’s the promises of God. Specifically, the promises of faith, including eternal life, ruling with Christ in eternity where all sin is destroyed, and enjoying a world remade as paradise.
Now, you’re not going to get through a significant life storm with a simple, “I believe in God” type of faith.
James says that even the demons believe in God, and they quiver because of it. So, simple belief in a higher power or even belief in the God of Scripture won’t cut it. And the author of Hebrews urges us in 6:1 to “move beyond the elementary teachings about Christ and be taken forward to maturity.”
An Anchor Faith trusts God in all circumstances, as Abrahaham did (verse 15). Anchor faith trusts God for his eternal promises, trusts that he has covered your sins and you are going to be cleared on the day of judgment, that is, whenever He decides for the final storm to start. And it trusts Him in the current storms, regardless of how viciously they blow.
Weak & Strong Anchors
If there’s an anchor that holds our souls “firm and secure,” then there must also be faulty versions. If you’re a big boat (someone with influence, clout, or fame), and you try to grab a tiny little Walmart anchor for your fishing dinghy, it won’t hold. When those winds pull your big boat, it’ll snap right in two. And then you’re adrift. The storm will wreck you.
But the promise of God, of His faithfulness, that He has secured your salvation and has an eternal home for you—that is the biggest anchor available. It’ll hold any size ship, no matter how small or big your faith, no matter how small or big your responsibilities.
If you find it and apply it.
Many people during these last few years, especially in 2020, got stuck in the OODA loop. If you don’t know what that is, it’s a military term. Go check out John Lovell in the Warrior Poets Society for a thorough explanation.
In short, it’s that moment when you freeze because you don’t know what to do.
Some people already knew what they were going to do when mandates and lockdowns came. They had that anchor firm and secure. They knew the battle lines that they were on, and they weren’t going to budge.
Other people panicked or wandered in confusion. They were more willing to accept anything in order to feel safe, to feel like somebody was going to take care of them.
But complete reliance on others is a weak anchor.
Some of them learned that lesson. They ditched the cheap dinghy anchor and found something else. But they didn’t always choose the best replacement. They may not have gone in with the draconian measures and the tyrannical ideas being pushed. But many just took the opposite stance, relying on new politics to hold them firm.
I had friends who went from being very far left to being very far right because of what they saw happening in governments around the West in 2020. And without faith, that’s not a good anchor, either.
Their original politics didn’t hold them. Why would the new ones?
Politics isn’t big enough to keep you steady in any form, though some forms are stronger than others.
You need a true anchor. An eternal and true anchor.
Only one fits the bill. The hope seen in Hebrews.
What’s interesting about this metaphor is suddenly God becomes not just the anchor, but the harbor itself. The more we trust, the more we understand His constant presence, even when we don’t feel it!
If that doesn’t get you through the tempest, well, go back to the basics. Do you just “believe”, or do you trust that every promise is coming true in the end and the He is with you?
The compass
The compass is a bit more complex—but hey, it’s more technical in the real tool, too.
Psalm 119 sings of the value of knowing and following God’s word, summarized in the beloved line, “Your word is a lamp for my feet and a light on my path.” (verse 105)
Sounds a lot like a compass. You may not get the entire route on the map, but you can at least get a bearing. A course or direction is what you need in the torrent of life. It can make the difference between despair and optimism.
But as the Psalmist lays out in his song, the word directs, protects, comforts, and corrects. The word does not change, and so you can trust it to make you “wiser than [your] enemies.”
Like the anchor, it won’t do you any good unless you use it. A Bible sitting on the shelf during a chaotic season is about as good as a compass locked in the captain’s quarters during a monsoon.
To make the compass even better, we have a second part.
Isaiah 30:21 speaks of, for him, a future time when “whether you turn to the right or to the left your ears will hear a voice behind you saying, ‘This is the way; walk in it.’”
From a New Testament perspective, he’s talking about the Holy Spirit. And the New Testament picture of His activity fleshes out Old Testament passages about God’s leading, such as Proverbs 3:5-6
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
in all your ways submit to him,
and he will make your paths straight.”
We need the Word, and we need the Holy Spirit. Together, we get our compass.
In the Word, we learn the truth, we learn about God, who He is and what He expects. We learn the way that we’re supposed to walk in the world, how we’re supposed to engage with God and others. It clarifies the directions we open to us—whether we’re believers or not.
But if you are a child of God, the Holy Spirit within you, the Spirit of Christ, enlightens and enlivens what we find in the Word.
Then, lucky you, you have an internal guide that will always agree with the Word and will help you when the specifics of your circumstances may not be easy to find in Scripture. And He’ll help you beyond just the direction—He’ll help you want to follow what you find in the Word.
With both, we have our true north.
True and False Compasses
But like the anchor, there are less reliable compasses available.
Again, during the chaos of the last few years, many had no direction. So, they blew with the winds of power or popularity.
With no anchor and no direction, without a moral foundation, your only choice is being driven with the wind. You get tossed about. When one person says something with confidence, you go in that direction. When another person says something new, you follow them.
That’s not a way to live a life. It’s a fool’s way. A way to be driven and controlled by other people’s motivations and agendas. It only leads to a chaotic life.
Our culture is full of faulty or false compasses.
We see them every day in quippy quote memes on social media. Most tell you in some way that true north is not true: You are true north.
That’s going to spin you in circles. Literally. That’s as if you were sitting on magnetic north and holding the compass, trying to find your way home.
So, when you hear “follow your heart,” “follow your truth,” “you do you,” or any of the endless variations, know that those are false compasses. Those are lying to you.
You need a true one, as described above.
Using Your Tools
How do we use these two tools? We don’t have to do it alone.
As I said above, the nobodies in the church weather the storms together, through God’s strength. And each of us is often equipped to use one tool over another.
Think of the church as a fleet. Inside the fleet, there are big ships and small boats. There are strong ocean liners and wobbly river skiffs.
When a storm comes, the only way some of them survive is by anchoring in God’s harbor and holding onto that future hope. Others are better equipped to ride the storm and follow God’s lead through it, potentially breaking new territory open.
We might think of them as the stronger of the two, but that poses a risk. If you’re a brave compass guy, turning into the waves at God’s leading, please don’t look down on those who, for many reasons, need to anchor. They may be the ones protecting the vulnerable while you’re out there battling the vortex in the Kool-Aid jar.
Likewise, if you see the anchor position as stronger and firmer, holding to the traditions while the compass followers toy with the edge of heresy, check your heart. No boats are made to anchor forever, though each thrives in different conditions. Romans 15 might be a good chapter to study.
The church needs both the stability of anchors and the courage of compasses.
Together, we keep the church alive and vital, and we pull the whole fleet through the storm or sail together in the calm. Some rely more on God’s harbor and others forge into new territory at the edge of the map. The gospel needs workers both in places of refuge and on dangerous fronts to spread God’s kingdom and reach the lost.
What about you? Do you have that secure anchor? Is the compass guiding you? Which do you turn to more often?
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In addition to Imago Dad, Brandon Wilborn writes speculative fiction with spiritual themes. Find his previously released books at BrandonWilborn.com