Hover

One of the kids’ favorite gifts from Santa this year was a hoverboard. After last summer with Peter’s broken arm and a daredevil two-year old, I was not a fan. However, the kids had great fun with their cousins’ board some months before and Santa often doesn’t consult me until after things are purchased. It was amazing to me that within minutes the kids were experts. Cruising around our basement at high-speed, even multi-tasking while riding - it came so natural to all of them. What was I worried about? I pushed one of them out of the way to take my turn. There was no cruising and certainly no multi-tasking. No, it could only be described as foreshadowing my old age when I have no balance, and need two of my children holding on to me to help me move at a snail’s pace. As I inched along I imagined how complicated life was going to be when I needed to board an airplane with the broken shoulder I would soon have or how’d I have to maneuver facilitating a room on crutches. As soon as they let go, I catapulted off the hoverboard into a pile of legos and decided that was enough.

As 2-year old Norah did figure eights around me while I checked for bruises, I wondered why it was so easy for them, then it hit me. Literally, the hoverboard hit me. Norah giggled. They have little sense of implications, projections or future consequences. Their present, for better or worse, isn’t so consumed with the potential future that always hovers over me. As a leader, is the future a friend or a foe? Do I “go into battle” with a sense of impending victory or imagining defeat? Am I missing the joy God gives me in my present by constantly predicting a tomorrow only He ultimately knows? Here’s to cruising into the future (on foot) with confidence in His love.