The Tide Always Comes Back | St. Arbuck's Chapel, Rev. Jeff Gannon

Do you consider yourself an optimist, a pessimist, or a realist?

If you want to know what you really are, look at what you say and look at how it is said.

As the late and great Maya Angelou used to say, “When people show you who they are, believe them!” We will show people who we are by what we say and how we say it.

Norman Vincent Peale, the author of the book, The Power of Positive Thinking, used to tell the story of a struggling businessman who reached a turning point in life after seeing a picture of a boat stuck in the sand. The caption said:

The Tide Always Comes Back.

We often make two common mistakes:

When things are good, we think everything will always be good.
When things are bad, we think everything will always be bad.

Both are wrong. The Tide Always Comes Back! This is realism because it is rooted in reality!

Life, and all it entails — your relationships and health and finances, your approval rating among those you work and the success of each new endeavor — tends to cycle from peak to valley. As the old hymn says, there is an ebb and flow to life.

You can count one constant in all of this: God’s faithfulness. Your ability to survive the ebb comes down to your willingness to trust in God’s goodness, even when all you see is sand.

Today, whether your tide is in or out, lean on the faithfulness of God. This is realism because the tide always comes back! Focus on God’s presence, and remember God’s promise. This is realism because the tide always comes back!

Be thankful for his goodness; be thankful for his mercy. For your unfailing love is as high as the heavens Your faithfulness reaches to the clouds. (Psalm 57:10)

This is realism because the tide always comes back!

–Rev. Jeff Gannon