I watched the young boy running with a wild sense of abandon and freedom. It was exciting! It was fun! As quiet as my soul was before he started, with each step I could feel it getting lighter, younger, and energized. This is how one should live! Nothing holding you back. Everything is possible. Careless, carefree, and confidents are ideals embraced, lived, and shared! It was beyond wow. I wanted to be him.
Part of me hoped he would never stop running. I wanted the hope in that moment to last forever! My greatest desire as I watched was for him to only know the feelings he felt right then. Ideally, I would share it with him as well. It would be amazing!
Even as I reveled, the cynical and the doubter within me found their voices. He will crash and burn. He will land on his face. He will know the way you felt just moments ago when you realized that “now I’m flat on my face feeling sorry for myself morning to night.” (Psalm 38.6)
Two voices began to scream at each other in my imagination. No! Yes! No! Yes, yes!
The Doubter began to dominate with a dominating prophecy of failure; he will land flat on his face, just like you.
Even as I watch I wondered about the future. Inevitably we fall or at least we run out of energy. It was the reality that would mark the end of what I was experiencing through this child.
As his speed picked up, fear naively banished, my heart began to tremble. I could not see how this would end well, for either of us.
At the peak of his effort everything turned. His father stepped out from behind a tree and opened his arms wide. The kid never stopped! Yes, he crashed and burned. He laughed and hugged his father with an embrace that smashed them like a toastie-sandwich – hot, mashed, and wonderfully pressed together.
I can be this child. I can and will run, as fast as my legs can carry me.
