Make Room For The Tide!

"Years ago, a wealthy businessman from London chartered a bus to carry a busload of urban children to the coast. There, the children spent a wonderful day at the ocean.

Many of the children had never left the city. Most had never seen the ocean. For one blissful day, they ran unfettered over the beaches. It was a splendid day filled with vivid memories.

On the ride back to London, the businessman went through the bus speaking with each of the children. Toward the back of the bus, he noticed a boy sitting alone with a wistful look on his face. In the boy's grimy hands was a bottle half-filled with water from the ocean.

He pointed to the bottle and asked, "What are you doing with that?" The boy replied that he was taking it to his mother because she, too, had never seen the ocean.

The businessman was quiet for a moment. He then asked the boy why the bottle was only half-full.

Without hesitation, the boy replied, "I left room for the tide to come in."*

*Illustration borrowed from Ken Gurley, "Leaving Room for the Tide" in Where Will Your Heart Be Buried? (First Church Publications: Pearland, 2006), 70.