When I read Tim Challies' blog this morning, as I do every day, one of the graphics on his site depicted a ship at sea. In the picture/photo, the ocean is so expansive and the ship seems so small by comparison. When I saw the picture I recalled a quote that I hadn't heard for many years so I went to Google to check it out. Apparently the quote was inscribed or carved on a block of wood that sat on John. F. Kennedy's desk.
There's also a poem that I found. I'll quote the poem and the brief story about JFK's desk.
Our lives can appear to be so small and insignificant but in God's eyes...we are very special. So valuable to Him that He gave His Son to redeem us and give wonderful peace and eternal life. - David
"This Old Breton prayer was inscribed on a block of wood on the desk of President John F. Kennedy. Admiral Hyman Rickover would give it to new submarine captains and also presented one to the President. Kennedy loved the quote and used it in his dedication of the East Coast Memorial to the Missing at Sea on May 23, 1963. He always kept it on his desk in the Oval Office and it is now in the JFK Presidential Museum and Library."
Here is the poem in its entirety:
Thy sea, O God, so great,
My boat so small.
It cannot be that any happy fate
Will me befall
Save as Thy goodness opens paths for me
Through the consuming vastness of the sea.
Thy winds, O God, so strong,
So slight my sail.
How could I curb and bit them on the long
And saltry trail,
Unless Thy love were mightier than the wrath
Of all the tempests that beset my path?
Thy world, O God, so fierce,
And I so frail.
Yet, though its arrows threaten oft to pierce
My fragile mail,
Cities of refuge rise where dangers cease,
Sweet silences abound, and all is peace.
- Winfred Ernest Garrison
Check out Tim Challies' blog at www.challies.com
God is bigger than any problem!
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