“We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.”

Hebrews 6:19

Stability is a foreign and frightening concept to most of us. While we desperately crave it, we also secretly distrust it. We spend our lives searching for a place where we feel comfortable and safe, and once we find that fortress of comfort, we think we’ll be happy for the rest of our lives. Yet deep in our hearts, I think we all at times suspect that regardless of what we’ve placed our trust in, we’ll one day find ourselves betrayed. Whether we’re talking about a house or car which you fear may be destroyed, or a blissful relationship which you secretly suspect may come crashing to the ground at any moment, the fact is that it’s often a natural human tendency to secretly plan for the worst, even in situations when we believe that we’re genuinely happy.

If you’ve ever lost your home to a natural disaster, or even been threatened by that possibility, it quickly puts into perspective just how fragile our places of refuge can be. When I was in high school, my family’s home was threatened by a massive wildfire which caused unprecedented destruction across Southern California. I distinctly remember school being closed for a week, and the sun being blotted out in the middle of the day by the enormous clouds of ash which filled the sky. At night, my brother and I sat on the roof of our house and watched ominously as the hillsides all around our community were engulfed with giant gashes of brightly-blazing flame. The entire concept of homeowners insurance exists because people realized long ago that your “castle” won’t be much of a castle after a raging fire, earthquake, or hurricane rips through your neighborhood. Planning for failure is a smart way to live your life, as far as our society is concerned.

It's very rare that I manage to come up with two posts in the same week, let alone back-to-back. God gets the credit. I recently watched the following sermon by John Ortberg, and it resonated with me very deeply. We all go through periods of our life when disappointments and defeats blindside us. The worst part is not even the disappointment itself, but the brutal and unending waiting that comes afterwards. Nobody likes waiting in a hole. Joseph did it, Jonah did it, and Jesus himself did it, but somehow we're all surprised when life beats us down and leaves us helplessly awaiting some kind of breakthrough.

The video below was filmed at an Intervarsity leadership conference. If you're not familiar with IV, they're a fantastic college campus ministry which operates on almost every campus in the US. I've recently been offered the honor of being a guest-writer for their blog, and I'm told one of my articles will  be published later this month.

In the meantime, please watch this sermon. It's almost 40 minutes, so I suggest pulling up a comfy chair.

EDIT: Looks like the video is having upload issues. You can find the original post here: http://2100.intervarsity.org/resources/john-ortberg-129-am-sc-14

There was a brief and wonderful period in my life when I was part of the Navy Run Team while I was attending the Defense Language Institute back in 2008 and 2009. Our goal was to train for a quarterly race which was held by the school, where all four branches of the military would field their best team of eight runners to race against each other in a winner-take-all two mile race. It was by far the best physical shape I’ve ever been in in my life. It all started because I was attending a bible study along with the team captain, and over the course of our getting to know each other, he continually pressured me to come out and practice with the team. I politely rebuffed his initial invitation, telling him simply, “I’ll never be in good enough shape to compete with you guys.” He laughed and said, “the only way to get faster is to run more, dude.”

My first few practices were something of a disaster. Not only could I not complete the seemingly-easy drills which they took for granted, but I would go home every night in agonizing pain, wondering how in the world I could ever have been so foolish as to think myself able to keep up with guys who were running six-minute miles. Nevertheless, I kept showing up. As I continued coming to practice each afternoon and slaying myself with sprint drills, the faster guys started to come alongside me with words of encouragement. Eventually, my times got gradually quicker. I went from 1:30 on my quarter mile laps to 1:25, then eventually down to 1:20, and so on. At my peak, I was running about a seven-minute mile.