“It’s never been this hard. What’s wrong with me? I know it’s been a year since I took the kayak out. There’s a little incoming tide, but not much. There’s a little crosswind. I’m a little older. None of that should matter.”
The morning started well. I arrived on the back beach of Sand Key and put the kayak in the water. I paddled around the end of the island, past the big bridge pilings, to my first stop in the pass. I anchored against the slight drift while I cast against the seawall; nothing. I pulled the anchor up a few feet, paddled along the seawall, cast some more…nothing.
I headed out the pass. That’s when the weirdness set in – kayaks are fun because move easily through the water with every stroke. This was more like slogging through swamp mud.
I made it around the point, and into the fishing spot. (I tried not to think about the paddle back – would it be as bad as the paddle out?)
“Lord, it’s never been this hard – I’m tired, discouraged, sick a little too often, and I just want to stop. I don’t know what’s wrong. I want to give up. What happened to me? Where are you, Lord?”
I reached back to drop anchor and discovered I’d left the anchor hanging about eight feet down the whole way; I hadn’t raised it out of the water for the paddle out. I’d been dragging it through the water, and sometimes catching it on the sandy bottom, the whole time.
You wouldn’t believe how easy the return was.
How often have I clung to an old grudge, an old belief, an old assumption, an old hurt, an old ambition or desire? How often have those things been dragging down my journey, making it drudgery instead of joy? Then suddenly, I realize it’s time to let those things go, to let God renew my mind some more, even right now.
I could just cut those anchor lines. Oh, I might not be as fast as I used to be. But the joy can come back.
Hebrews 12 says in part, “…let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles.” Drop the weights you weren’t meant to carry. Step over your old sins, your old ways. Walk past the old sins against you, for they have no more power anymore. Run to – or at least look to – Jesus, “the author and finisher of our faith”, who began his work in you and who is quite determined to complete his work with you.
Even when you forget to cut the anchor line.
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