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Anchor House - Week 22 - High Speed Internet

This past week we were blessed by Big Fish Technologies. For the longest time Anchor House has struggled to get internet speeds and stability that could keep up with today's demands. For the seafarer, it wasn't much faster than the slow WiFi they could get on board the ship. For us at Anchor House, we struggled to do the daily tasks of paying bills, reading email, and various other web based activities.  

When I first started, we began the process to qualify for participation in the Giving Challenge. Doing so required uploading a significant number of PDF documents. This should be a task that is easily done with modern day technology. However, I found that one PDF file would take 10 minutes to upload or would completely fail to upload on the Anchor House internet. With slow speeds like we had, there is no way a Seafarers could download movies or an electronic version of the Bible to their phone to combat the countless hours of solitude. 

But now things are different. Big Fish figured out that we could wirelessly beam high speed internet from another building to our building. They laid out a plan to install internet at the building down the road from us. Using special antennas they beam the internet back and forth between Anchor House and the building down the road.  

When we had the internet installed at the building down the road from us, I shared what we were doing with the installer from the internet provider. He told me that he had zero confidence our plan would work. Of course, he didn't work for Big Fish and didn't have the complete understanding of the scope of the project. But right then and there, the enemy planted a seed of doubt in my heart. I thought, “Maybe he is right. He’s an expert with this stuff, righ?. Oh my goodness, what if we go through all this trouble only to find out it didn't work.” The enemy used that moment to wedge doubt in against my faith. 

My friend, whom I've known for well over a decade, was the representative for Big Fish Technologies who had been working with us. He is trustworthy and honest. If it couldn’t be done, he would have told me. He deserved for me to put my trust in him. He’d certainly earned it. I should have had more faith in our relationship but that seed of doubt is a powerful thing. The enemy had successfully attacked my faith.  

It makes me think of Peter being called out of the boat by Jesus. He had all the faith in the world when he stepped out of that boat. A few steps in doubt rushed in and took over. Peter was able to physically look our savior square in the eyes. He still managed to let doubt attack his faith. He took his eyes off of what he knew to be true. He allowed his faith to waiver rather than trusting his relationship with Jesus.

As fear took over and Peter began to sink, he cried out to Jesus saying, “Lord save me.” Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. (Matthew 14:30-31). Just like Peter, I asked Jesus for help and He came to my rescue. With His help my faith squashed doubt. 

It's really simple. God just wants us to trust Him. He wants us to trust that His son did it all for us and through Him we have this amazing promise of a beautiful forever. The enemy on the other hand, fears trust in God because the enemy knows he stands no chance going toe to toe with the Great I Am. 

Be blessed and be a blessing,
Matt

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