My family recently spent a week and change in Fort Walton Beach, Florida.
Not to worry, though. We social distanced like champs and have returned home healthy and ready to roll.
Our routine each day was extremely basic and bland. We roused the children at about 9 a.m., and by 9:30 a.m., we were usually covered in sunscreen and ready to head to the beach. Other than a short trip back to the room to eat lunch, restock the cooler and reapply sunscreen, all day was spent on our 8 to 10 feet square of white sand or in the water out in front of it.
I’ve not spent a great deal of time on the Gulf of Mexico. Most of my trips to the beach have taken me to the Atlantic Ocean or Lake Michigan. My few trips to the gulf had me expecting very little by way of waves. As a matter of fact, before this trip I had never experienced rideable waves on the gulf.
Much to my surprise and great delight, by Day 3 at the beach, rather large waves started rolling to shore. We quickly purchased some $9.99 boogie boards, and the proverbial party began.
At the very beginning, I wasn’t terribly discerning about the waves I would ride. If a wave of any reasonable size was coming my way, I turned toward shore and took what was there.
As time wore on and I experienced waves of various shapes and sizes, I began to become more picky about what waves I would take. I would stand and watch the waves coming in, anticipating that next perfect wave that was surely coming to offer me the best possible ride. The anticipation left me frozen in place always waiting for the next wave.
Meanwhile, my lovely wife was much less discriminatory. As I stood in immovable anticipation of the perfect wave, she continued to quite literally ride circles around me as great waves passed me by. I don’t know how long I stood there waiting, but as I watched some nice waves coming toward me, I had a thought: The wave you ride is better than the wave you’re left waiting for.
Rather than fighting the waves that were passing me by to wait for a wave that might never come, I could have ridden them and still been back in place before the next monster made its way in. My new motto became “Take the wave.”
This revelation has been rolling through my mind for the last several days. I think it’s an incredibly profound metaphor for life. How often do we scan the host of opportunities that come our way only to let them pass in order to wait for the better opportunity?
Don’t misunderstand me. I understand the principle that you often have to say no to the good in order to say yes to the great. In general, I tend to agree. But what if we are saying no to the good for a great that is still a long way off? Would it not be better to take advantage of the good that is before us while we anticipate the great that is yet to come?
Anticipation is an alluring beauty always calling for our undivided attention. It is ultimately limited to our imagination of what might be. Experience requires us to engage what is present in the here and now. Sure, our imagination is often rooted in past experience. Even then, our memory of what was only informs our imagination of what could possibly be, often without regard for what actually is.
For many of us, the realities of COVID-19, quarantine and social distancing impacted our lives in fundamental and profound ways. As my neighbor likes to say, it has us all living the dream “one nightmare at a time.”
In the midst of this reality, we find ourselves anticipating and hoping for what could eventually be, which is natural and OK to some degree. We cannot, however, afford to allow our anticipation of days to come to cause us to overlook the opportunities of the days we’re in.
The words of the Psalmist seem very appropriate for this time: “Trust the Lord and do good.” No one knows what will come with the next wave of life. Let’s not miss the ride before us in anticipation of what might be. Trust the Lord with the days ahead and take the wave he provided today.
The Rev. Jeremy Myers is the lead pastor of First Baptist Church in Seymour. Read his blog at jeremysmyers.com. Send comments to [email protected].