I often work out in the ocean, and so I know famous sayings can be important. How about: Go with the flow. Ride the waves.

But I also was born and reared in Niagara Falls, and so know that going with the flow can be disastrous.

In Niagara, when you see rapids, you know they are followed by a fatal plummet over the famous cataracts.

In life, we’re similarly wise to note whitewater.

Turbulence. When not a test, when not a “sent suffering,” it can be an omen in our lives, indicating rocks beneath swift water.

Those rocks can be of many kinds and in every kind of human relationship.

Often, it is good to go with the flow and whiff the breeze, smell the flowers.

But when we look at the life of Christ, we know He not only didn’t go with the flow in many cases but stood as a bulwark against it.

There is a quiet strength in surrender.

Not the surrender of defeat or despair, but the kind of surrender that comes from trust—from knowing that life, like a river, has its own rhythm, bends, and destination. To “go with the flow” is not to float aimlessly. It is to understand that while we may not control the current, we are not powerless within it. In fact, some of the greatest peace and progress comes when we stop fighting the tide and learn to move with it.

To go with the flow is to believe that something larger than ourselves is at work. It is to trade anxiety for anticipation, rigidity for responsiveness. It is a way of life rooted in faith—faith that the timing we don’t understand may be protecting us, that detours might lead to greater destinations, and that rest is not the same as stagnation.

Go with the flow and find Grace in life’s currents.

Go with the flow when the flow is of the Holy Spirit.

You can only know and perceive, you can only feel that, with prayer.

This isn’t passivity; it’s perspective. When we stop resisting what we cannot change, we free ourselves to change what we can. We soften, we grow, we find our way—not by brute force, but by Grace. And often, we arrive in a better place than we could have ever imagined.

–MHB

[resources: books of inspiration]