Knowing the Tides

Near the end of his life, my father-in-law, John Beal, wrote a powerful William Shakespeare quote into his journal. Shakespeare had written about the tides—the ebbs, flows, and movements—of a person’s life, and how one’s success or failure is largely determined by how they respond to them.

He wrote, “There is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat; and we must take the current when it serves or lose our ventures.”

Consider that: “We must take the current when it serves or lose our ventures.”

There is an art to discerning and then moving with the currents of our lives. Some people stay too long or move too soon and miss out on what could have been. Indeed, post-mortem evaluations of leadership crashes often cite being out of season—missing the movement of the tide—as a top reason for failures and regrets.[1]

It is essential that we perceive our times and seasons and then move with them accordingly. Many of us have learned the hard way that being in the wrong place at the wrong time can capsize us, whereas, moving in sync with the tides can move us further into our destiny.

If you know your season and are responding wisely to it, well done! Carry on. And if you fear you may have missed a movement or are outside of where you should be, take heart. Shakespeare was only partly right. While key decisions can certainly propel or sink us, we are not at the mercy of every missed moment or opportunity. God is a restorer and a redeemer, the master at bringing beauty from ashes and fresh starts from missed opportunities.

Let’s try to catch every God-appointed tide. Let’s move when the Spirit says move. And if we miss it, let’s run back to the One who sees the end from the beginning and can reattach us to destiny.

[1] Stephen Mansfield, Ten Signs of a Leadership Crash (Nashville, TN., 2017). 13.