The Tides of Life

    The past few days it has felt like it has been raining enough to flood the whole earth again. That has drawn my mind to some past experiences I have had with water, this one in particular has had a profound affect on me throughout my entire life and has taught me principles of how I need to live and protect myself from the grasp of the adversary.
   
    In the summer of 2002 my family and I took a trip to San Diego. It was a summer tradition to go and stay at our beach house every year. This was sort of the highlight of our summer. We had so many fun trips there that I will forever remember but this trip has left a lasting impression and a lasting lesson in my mind.
   

     My brother and I were one afternoon playing on the beach trying to keep the ball that we were hitting back and forth in the air. In the process we got very sandy and after a bit we decided to go wash off in the ocean by body surfing. Without thinking too much about it, we both went in without life jackets, or floatation device of any kind. Little to our knowledge there was a rip tide that was going on at that present time. A rip tide is something that pulls water with an extremely powerful force away from the shore.
   
     Before we knew it we both could no longer feel the ground and we realized that we were well away from the shore. We both tried with our might to swim back to shore but it seemed as though no matter what we did we got dragged out further and further from the shore. In panic we kept on swimming, exhausting our energy, which eventually left us weak and with hardly any energy to stay afloat. For what seemed an eternity we were treading water. On a couple of occasions only staying afloat because of my brothers help. A surfer stopped and helped us at one point to stay afloat but it wasnt until the life guard came out and pulled us to safety that we truly felt safe.
    
     Through the tides of life we often run into problems like rip tides that try to tear us away from the safety of the gospel. "Why should I yield to sin, because of my flesh? Yea, why should I give way to tempations that the evil one have place in my heart to destroy my peace and afflict my soul?...Rejoice, O my heart, and give place no more for the enemy of my soul"(2 Nephi 4:27-28).
   
    So the question remains, how do we stay away from the rip tides of life and if you are in a rip tide of your life, how can you overcome it?

1. Put on your spiritual life jacket-Pray, read the scriptures, attend church faithfully.
2. Stay afloat, dont slip under the water where the tides can have full power over you.
3. Hang onto the good around you and repel evil.
4. Look for the 'life-guards' of life- The words and guidance of living Apostles and Prophets.
    
     As you do those four things you will be doing this: Remembering the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ. I know that there there are those rip tides in our life. Sometimes they seem unavoidable, however, God has given us the power to overcome them and not be dragged down by Satan. We have the power, and it is through Christ that we look to for the source of that power.