The Lone Kayaker

ONE of my favorite times of day is driving home from work, not solely because I get to go home and forget about work's woes (yes, I do try to leave work at work), but because I have the most glorious of scenic views--I get to watch the winding Arkansas River and its banks evolve with the seasons.

What pleased me today was seeing a lone kayaker cut through the glass paradise of water beneath him. There was an urgency in his movements, like he was challenging the sun to hold its slumber for one more hour--and the water, oh the gleaming water. It so gladly made way for its voyager, but just as quickly returned to its former state, content to be still until the next interruption.

Am I so glad to move at God's beckonings? What if He's assigning a kind of love or deed so dreadfully inconvenient? Then I remember that if I avoid all of God's callings and all of life's difficulties and challenges, I would be robbing others-myself-to see, with clarity, the precious lessons carried and taught by those in our lives--those carried by the kayaker--earnestly on his journey, perhaps amidst inconveniences of his own to which I could relate--perhaps those that could be cradled by the hands of love and friendship.

Perhaps I could learn the same lesson he has learned: that life's inconveniences may not be that inconvenient after all, and maybe, just maybe, the sun will give us a few more hours to play.