How important are anchors? Solid fixtures that we can tether ourselves to that provide stability . . . things we can latch onto when life gets a little chaotic . . . structures put in place that help re-establish our equilibrium. And I’m thinking worship can be one of those anchors in our lives . . . a touch point which, whenever we return to it, helps get our legs back underneath us . . . our internal GPS reset . . . our feet set again on solid ground. It’s Abram’s journey into the promised land that’s got me thinking about altars as anchors.

Faithful Abram has heeded God’s call . . . a call founded on the promise of an inheritance . . . a call to leave his country and go . . . a call to be going without knowing exactly where the going was to. And Abram responds to the promise . . . “so Abram went, as the Lord told him” (Gen. 12:4).

And as they enter the land of Canaan, the Lord appears to Abram and says, “Abram, this is it . . . this is the place of promise . . . the place where I will establish you as a great nation . . . the place where I will bless you . . . the place where I will establish you so that in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (12:7, 2-3). And Abram’s response to this revelation?

So he built there an altar to the LORD, who had appeared to him. (Genesis 12:7 ESV)

From there, Abram moves deeper into the land. Walking, literally, on the promise of God, he again lays done another anchor . . .

From there he moved to the hill country on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. And there he built an altar to the LORD and called upon the name of the LORD. (Genesis 12:8 ESV)

As Abram tastes the reality of God’s promises . . . as he experiences the reality of God’s presence . . . as his feet come in contact with the solid ground of God’s place . . . he responds with an offering. He builds an altar . . . a place of sacrifice . . . a place on earth that acknowledges the God of heaven . . . a place where the heart’s desire is to propel a sweet smelling aroma to the portals of heaven . . . that the blessing of the day might be tethered to the God of tomorrow.

And there He calls upon the name of the LORD. There He cries out to the God of the journey . . . praising Him for the land He has seen . . . invoking His continued favor as He continues, by faith, to explore the land He will one day possess. As the smoke arises . . . as Abram’s voice is lifted up . . . I imagine awe and worship. “Who am I, Lord that I should know such favor? Who am I, that I should stand amidst such promise? I am nothing . . . but You! . . . You, O God of my calling . . . You are everything . . . I worship You!”

The next time I read of Abram at an altar, calling upon the name of the Lord, is in Genesis 13 . . . after a little “side trip” to Egypt. Talk about your precarious time . . . Abram heads into “the world” in order to meet his basic needs as famine strikes Canaan. There, because of His deceit and deception, he ends up losing his wife to the courts of Pharaoh. There, by the grace and sovereign purposes of God, his wife is protected . . . and Abram is prospered . . . and they leave Egypt. And Abram returns to his anchor . . . to “the place where his tent had been at the beginning” . . . “to the place where he had made an altar at first” . . . “and there Abram called upon the name of the LORD” (13:3-4).

The altar, an anchor . . . the place of worship, a tether to the throne of God . . . the offering of the sacrifice of praise, the fruit of our lips, a means of re-gaining some equilibrium in chaotic life circumstances. O’ that my altars would be many . . . that my offerings would be frequent . . . that my feet would be set on solid ground . . . that He might be receive all the glory . . .