Live Life by George Tolentino Gabriel [SAMPLE]

SEE THE OCEAN

I REMEMBER WALKING along the beach of Phuket on my honeymoon. There was a vast ocean in front of me that seemed to have no end.

I picked up a stone and threw it as far out as I could. I didn’t see it hit the water. I didn’t even see the splash. As if its impact didn’t even make a difference. Something that small couldn’t disrupt the calmness of the great sea.

And then I thought… that’s how vast God’s love for us is.

Our problems, our worries, even our sins, when we throw them into the ocean of His love, they hardly matter. His grace is so much bigger than our concerns.

But oftentimes we make our problems the ocean and His grace the stone. We magnify our problems by talking and talking about them.

Now, I’m not saying we shouldn’t discuss our struggles. In fact, I encourage everyone to do so. However, the question is, how often do we talk about God? Do we talk about Him as much as we talk about our problems?

I’ve observed that we hardly confess words of hope. We choose a negative perspective over a positive perspective.

What we need to do is to see the ocean before us and swim in it.

Soak ourselves in prayer. Read His promises to us in the Bible. Join prayer groups and hear what He’s done in the lives of others.

When you do this, His love gets bigger and bigger in your eyes. And your problem gets smaller and smaller. Such that when your next problem comes along, you can choose to just throw it in His unending ocean of mercy.

Look at David in the Bible. Instead of talking about how big Goliath was, he talked about His God. He talked about the solution, not the problem. He talked about victory and not defeat. All the other soldiers were terrified of Goliath. As they talked about him more, Goliath’s ego got larger and larger. But David said, “I come in the name of the Living God!” He praised God and remembered His goodness. He focused on the victory instead of the trial.

We need to look at the ocean, not the stone.

If you’re going through a trial today, recall how God has saved you in the past.

Remember that He’ll do it again today.

And tomorrow.

And the day after…