Every ship has an anchor that can be used for a variety of purposes. We usually think of an anchor as a good thing. However, at times an anchor can be a liability. A ship’s captain may order the anchor cast loose in order to quickly move his ship to safety or into battle. The time and noise involved in drawing up the anchor would have jeopardized the ship and crew. It would be better to loose the anchor than to lose the ship and its crew.

What if the ship’s anchor had been made of solid gold? Now the temptation would be to retrieve the anchor, even at the risk of losing the ship and crew. The right decision would still be to cast loose the anchor, but suppose the captain—because of the value of the anchor—had attached it with an unbreakable chain and welded the linchpin in place making it impossible to jettison?

An entire ministry can be jeopardized by a project that becomes a golden anchor. All available resources are poured into the project; although the rest of the ministry is suffering or even in danger of collapsing, the project is deemed too valuable or exciting to abandon. The project has become more important than the life of the ministry. It doesn’t matter that the project would make the ministry much easier or more fruitful. If the ministry founders because of a golden anchor, both are lost.

It takes wisdom and courage to strike the anchor pin and free the ship. Sometimes the anchor doesn’t have to be abandoned altogether, but the decision must be made to leave it alone. It might even mean that when we are able to return to the project that it will take longer and cost more. The question is which is more important—the anchor or the ship?