Title: The Anchor In The Fog
Scripture: “Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.” (1 John 3:18)
By Harold Mawela, Akasia, Pretoria
There is a particular kind of fog that rolls in over the Hennops River valley just before dawn. It blankets the highway, swallowing the taillights of the cars crawling home to Soshanguve, to Mabopane, to Wonderpark. You cannot drive through that fog by feeling your way. You cannot close your eyes and hope the tarmac knows your name. You drive by the anchor—the white line painted on the road. You trust the line, even when you cannot see the destination.
This is the geometry of love. And we have forgotten the mathematics of it.
Let us define our terms clearly, lest we build a house on the marsh of sentiment. The world, in its dizzying wisdom, has sold us a lie wrapped in rose petals and backed by a string orchestra. It tells us that love is a feeling. It tells us that love is the flutter in the chest, the heat in the blood, the euphoria of infatuation. But feelings, my friend, are the most fickle currency in the kingdom of man. They are like the data bundles on your phone—here one moment, depleted the next, leaving you stranded with a spinning wheel of death.
Is it not true that we have all felt the chill? That moment when the one you pledged your life to leaves a cup in the sink, and instead of warmth, you feel a wave of irrational irritation. The fog rolls in. The euphoria evaporates. And you are left standing in the kitchen of your ordinary life, wondering if the love has died.
I recall a Thursday evening not long ago. Load shedding had struck again—Stage Four, because of course it was. The estate in Akasia was silent except for the distant growl of a generator. I sat in the dark, the battery light of my laptop blinking its last rites. My wife, in the kitchen, asked me a question about something mundane. I do not even remember what it was. But I remember the fog. I was tired. The city had chewed me up and spat me out. And in that moment, kindness felt like a currency I did not possess. The feeling of love was absent. The fog was thick.
But here is the truth that saved my marriage and will save yours: Love is a verb before it is a feeling. It is an action before it is an emotion. It is a commitment before it is a comfort.
Imagine, if you will, that your love is a bridge. The warm feelings—the attraction, the affection, the joy—they are the pedestrians that walk across it. They come and go. Some days the bridge is crowded with celebration; other days, it is empty, and the wind howls through the cables. But the bridge itself? It is made of steel and concrete. It is made of showing up. It is made of choosing kindness when irritation is easier. It is made of offering support before the request is uttered. The bridge is the verb.
The Scripture declares unequivocally: "Let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth." The Greek there is telling. It is ergon, meaning work, deed, action. John is not dismissing words; he is grounding them. He is saying that a declaration of love without demonstration is a body without breath. It is a corpse.
We must sound the alarm against the cultural compromise seeping into the pulpits and the pews of Mamelodi and Montana. We have romanticized marriage as a perpetual high, and when the valley comes, we bail out, claiming we "fell out of love." No! You did not fall out of love; you stopped building the bridge. You stopped acting. You allowed the fog of disappointment to convince you that the sun had died.
This principle is not just for marriage; it is for life. It is for your walk with God. There are days when the presence of God feels like a foreign concept. The worship songs feel like noise. The Bible reads like a history textbook. The fog rolls in over your soul. Do you abandon the faith? Do you claim you have "fallen out of salvation"?
God forbid.
You anchor yourself in the action. You wake up and you pray, even when your words hit the ceiling and fall back down like dead birds. You open the Word, even when the letters blur. You gather with the brethren, even when your social battery is at zero. Why? Because feelings are fickle, but commitment is steadfast.
The argument can be formulated thus:
1. Love, as defined by God in 1 John 3:18, is primarily an action (a verb) demonstrated in truth.
2. Human emotions (feelings) are temporary and subject to change based on circumstances (fatigue, disappointment, weather).
3. Therefore, a love built on feeling alone will collapse when circumstances change.
4. But a love built on committed action provides a stable foundation, a bridge, over which feelings can safely return.
A common objection is: "But that sounds like hypocrisy! To act loving when you don't feel it?" However, this fails because it misunderstands the nature of covenant. It is not hypocrisy; it is discipleship. It is bringing your rebellious flesh into submission to the Spirit. It is saying, "I will not be ruled by the weather of my emotions, but by the Word of my God."
Look at the news. Look at the headlines screaming from the Pretoria News about the collapse of families, the rise of gender-based violence, the loneliness of the wealthy in Waterkloof. What is the root? Is it not the tyranny of feeling? "I felt angry, so I struck." "I felt unloved, so I strayed." "I felt unhappy, so I left." We have made feelings the god we serve, and it is an idol that demands human sacrifice.
True liberation is found only in submitting to the verb of love. It is found in the man who comes home from a long shift at the factory in Rosslyn, tired to the bone, and still helps his daughter with her homework because that is love. It is found in the wife who listens to her husband's fears about retrenchment, even though she has heard them a hundred times, because that is love.
I stood in my dark kitchen that Thursday night, the inverter beeping its last warning. And by the grace of God, I chose the verb. I put my hand on my wife's shoulder. I answered her question. I did not feel like it. But I acted. And in that action, the bridge held. And you know what? By the time we lit the candles, the fog had begun to lift. The warmth returned, not because I demanded it, but because I had prepared its way.
Do not mistake the calm, deep waters of mature love for the absence of love. It is its most powerful form. The ocean is deepest where it is calmest. The anchor holds best where the water is still.
Anchor your heart not in the fleeting feeling, but in the faithful action. Anchor it in the example of Jesus Christ, who, in the fog of Gethsemane, when His soul was overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death, did not run. He acted. He prayed. He surrendered. He walked to the cross. He loved you, not because you were lovely, but because He is love.
Go and do likewise.
Prayer:
Lord, anchor my heart not in the shifting sands of feeling, but in the solid rock of faithful action, as demonstrated by Your Son. Forgive me for the times I have worshipped my emotions and neglected my duties. Give me the grace to love when I do not feel it, to serve when I am tired, and to build the bridge of commitment even when the fog of disappointment is thick. In the name of Jesus Christ, my steadfast Anchor. Amen.
https://podcasts.apple.com/gh/podcast/the-anchor-in-the-fog/id1506692775?i=1000749700279
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