Life sometimes feels like standing on a beach with wave after wave crashing into you. Just when you regain your balance from the last crisis or disappointment, the next one hits, threatening to sweep your legs out from under you and drag you under.
If you’re feeling like this right now, then hopefully this advice I found on a sign in Hawaii will help. The sign said, “You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf!”
James 1:2-4 gives us similar advice. It says, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”
Today we may be no more able to stop the trials which come our way, then we can stop the waves from crashing on the shore, but how we respond to these challenges is up to us. We can give up and let them drag us down or we can use them to grow stronger and to carry us toward our goals. We can drown in a whirlpool of despair or we can learn to surf. The choice is ours.
Today, I choose to surf!