Riding the Waves

I sat there watching the extreme sports channel, a long while since I have done so. Over the years I have watched skateboarding, drag racing, bicycles weaving through the labyrinth of forest floors, motor bikes flying high from enclosed muddy hills and whatever the white man’s adrenaline fuelled mind conjures up. Today, however, the surfers owned the screen. “Truly ginormous; I can tell you, the waves are over 20 feet high,” the sports commentator shouted through the billowing storms, “but you really have to see them to understand. It’s awe inspiring.” He concluded with a breath of wow. How could this be inspiring? I asked myself, as I stared at the screen with incandescent glowing eyes. The huge screen teleported me to the action area, and I could feel the charge in the air, a wildness in the roar of the waves – a palpable sense of the ocean’s majesty, its power, right here on my sitting room couch.

Sitting there with lot of expletives melting on my tongue, I was mesmerized, watching giant swells rise and curl over in cascade of white, even more amazing were the little specs of humanity bobbing up and down out there, in the midst of that raging strength. Amid the towering waves they were actually riding those monsters, all in the name of surfing.

If not a suicidal, deranged mind, who sees an ocean heaving with 20 something foot waves and thinks, “Hey, let’s grab that piece of ‘plank’ and jump in?” But that’s how the mind works and propels people. It dreams big. Born surfers, I read, are always eager to test themselves whenever the big breakers are pounding. This thought made me reflect when my nephew was learning to crawl. His persistence, his effort, over and over again, made me think of the surfers. As many times he fell, he just got up and tried again.

This made me think of what all parents wish for their children. An easy way out? No risk, no worry? Or zest, daring a lion’s heart ready for big challenges. The kind of challenges that will demand the very best from their kids. To see their children grown in strength of character and have the appetite that’s eager to take on big challenges. A real life to be felt in the marrow. To dream big and have the energy and courage to pursue them.

 That’s what most parent wish for their children, and even to ourselves, especially to win the odds on Bet9ja or NairaBet or even the lotto. Just kidding (Sort of). But seriously, when thinking about the past, present and future, we all do more of dreading than dreaming. We press the “avoidance mode” button – avoiding fears, problems, failures – instead of working positively towards something good, let alone letting thoughts of greatness touch our souls. Spoiler Alert: That’s no way to dream big.

And when we do get big dream to chase, we occasionally choke and lose sight of them, amid the hundreds of distractions clamouring for attention, burying them deep, even when we know we would have to dig them right back up. Advice: Unearth them and pursue them like your only business in life.

In doing so, you are not doing it for yourself, but for your kids and other people in your life who you want to live with a lion’s heart. You can therefore show them by being a living, breathing lion yourself. And when working on your dream, remember God’s dream for you. A dream bigger than anything you could wish yourself. So big it can’t be imagined (1 Cor. 2:9), “Eye has not seen, and ear has not heard……what God has prepared for those who love him.”

We all know that when we were created by God, “He dreamt that one day we would shine like the sun” (Mt 13: 43; Eph. 2:10; Mt. 18:14). He created us to be “incorruptible and glorious” (1 Cor. 15: 42 – 43). We are called to one day know Him “face to face” (1 Cor. 13:12), and on such a day He will wipe [away] every tear from [our] eyes, and there will be no death or mourning, wailing or pain” (Rev. 21:4). How’s that for a dream?!

This is what God wants for us, and other people in our lives, and the best way we can show them is through chasing our dream for the ultimate dream of all. Continue to ride those waves. Be Strong, Be Brave.