English poet, Geoffrey Chaucer who lived in the late 1300's once wrote, "Time and Tide wait for no man." His meaning of course was that you can't stop time any more than you can stop the tide going out, mankind just doesn't have that power within them. It says that there are some areas of our lives over which we just have no control.
For some people that would be a very fatalistic view of life. They would throw up there hands and say, "what's the use in trying, you just cannot control things which happen to you."
It's true that we often have little control over parts of our lives. No we cannot stop change, we cannot stop aging, we cannot stop death; we just do not have that power. How do we who are Christians deal with these things, how do we look with hope to the future?
I love the story shared years ago by Norman Vincent Peale. He said, when he was a boy there was a picture hanging in his school classroom. The picture showed a lonely beach with the tide out and a boat lying tilted over on the sand far from the waters edge.
That is a sad picture, what use is a boat far removed from the water? Boats are made for the water; they serve no purpose without it. To some people that speaks of their lives, it seems that their lives have no purpose, they can't seem to find their way, they can't find that which makes them feel happy or fulfilled. They view themselves as that beached boat. To put it clearly, they have lost hope.
Now here is "the rest of the story" as Paul Harvey used to say. It seems that on the bottom of the picture was a small inscription which said, "Remember, the tide always comes back."
The point: Remember when everything seems against you, when you are finding it difficult to hold on in life, NEVER give up because the tide will turn eventually. The writer of Hebrews says this about life: "Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith. Because of the joy awaiting him, he endured the cross, disregarding its shame. Now he is seated in the place of honor beside God’s throne." (Hebrews 12:1-2, NLT)
"Lets us run with endurance the race…" The word "endurance" is defined in this way: "in the New Testament, it is the characteristic of a man who is not swerved from his deliberate purpose and his loyalty to faith and piety by even the greatest trials and sufferings. It is to live our lives patiently and steadfastly," (Strong's Dictionary of NT words). The apostle Paul writes in 1 Timothy 6:11 that we are to pursue (run after trying to catch) endurance.
My prayer is that each of us can be like the church in Thessalonica to which Paul writes these words, "We continually remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ." (NIV) Their endurance was inspired by hope in the Lord Jesus Christ. In what do you hope if not him? Time and tide may wait for no man, but our Savior waits for us always.
