When Glenda and I were first married we lived in Florida for a short time because I had some apartments to help build. We lived about a mile from the gulf and went there often. I can remember watching the tide come in and go out again and again. The water line was constantly changing with the tide. We learned to fish when the tide was coming in.

Another thing that a boy from Ohio found interesting were the boat docks on the inter-coastal waterways. They were made to float up and down with the rising and lowering tide. They call those docks slips.The docks on our farm ponds were fixed and did not move.

There are some great life lessons that can be learned by observing nature. There are always high and low places that we go through. Like the tide they come and go again and again. Like catching fish, the best time to make important decisions is when the tide is rising. Decisions made in the low tides of life are much more likely to be bad ones.

Anxiety is a sure sign of those low times. It has been proven that when we have anxiety we will accept bad advice. To overcome that possibility we must be able to move with the tide like a slip. If you were to build a rigid dock where you need a slip, it would be under water every time the tide came in.

In the low tides of life it is very difficult to have a good outlook on things. What if there was a way that we could have a good outlook in the low times? How do we become as flexible as a slip?

These are the issues we deal with at The Gathering Place every Sunday morning at 10:30 and Wednesday evening at 7.

Pastor

John Pfeifer