Waves. No, I’m not talking about Lupe’s new album, I’m talking about life. I’m talking about relationships, I’m talking about opportunities, I’m talking about the fact that sometimes in life you feel that everything is going well, and that you have the perfect wave.

You know those great opportunities that come around? Those opportunities that you immediately jump on and take advantage of? They feel like they only come around once in a lifetime. You’re happy, you’re excited, and you’re feeling blessed.

But then as fast as that opportunity came, that friend, that career, that blessing, it’s gone. Like a wave that only lasts so long before it dissipates into the ocean.

I was discussing this with a friend and mentor as I explained to him the frustration of having things in reach at one moment, and then out of reach another. The frustration of wishing things would just stay the same. We hate when the tide changes, when we want to go upstream but the tide is pulling us down.

But you know what, sometimes we need to let the tide do its thing. Sometimes we need to sit tight and wait for the next wave to come and to take us away. We need to learn to surrender ourselves and let God do His work, to let God lead our lives in the best way possible.

It’s true that if the tide is pulling you downstream and you want to go up, you can push, you can row, and you can tire yourself out while doing it. You can use up your entire being and at the end of the day, if you’re strong enough, you might make it. But at what cost?

Or you can do what I saw some of the fishermen of Guinea-Bissau do. They woke up before the sun rose when the tide took them where they needed to be, and they rode it with ease. Then they stayed all day until the tide switched and they finished their work and rode it back. They surrendered when they needed to and pushed when they needed to.

We don’t need to constantly push against what God wants from us. There will be times where you’ll need to push, and other times where when you surrender, he’ll take you exactly where you need to be.

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