Watch the Ball
We’ve been teaching Adelay to play catch. She has only middling success at it, and one reason is she watches her hands instead of the ball itself. She stands there, grinning broadly, staring expectantly at her carefully outstretched fingers as if the ball is going to magically appear there, caught perfectly in her toddler grip. Of course, when the ball does land, it’s a total surprise and bounces off her hands every time. She’s not particularly bothered by this, and still shouts with glee every time the ball bounces away, but she doesn’t have much hope of catching it unless she changes her focus.
So we keep encouraging her, “watch the ball!” She doesn’t often remember to do so, but when she does, she almost always catches it, to the excited shouts of her parents and her own amazement.
It seems like we’re all waiting for something, and we still haven’t learned the lesson of two-year-old catch – we are staring at our empty hands, examining our palms and the position of our fingers in preparation for the ball, without keeping our eyes on the ball itself.
We stare at our empty nurseries, our empty ring fingers, our unfulfilled hopes. We examine our empty hands, wondering if we’re being judged because we don’t hold our fingers right or because we haven’t washed them recently. Maybe if we tense our elbows the ball will come, maybe if we visualize a ball in our hands it will appear.
Of course this is all fine but pales in comparison to actually watching the ball itself. God is at work, like a loving parent tossing a ball to his toddler. We don’t understand the game, we are watching the wrong things, we get caught up in accomplishments that aren’t actually important. When I take my eyes off of my own hands – my pain, my fear, my insecurity – I am so much more likely to catch at least a glimpse of the ball God is tossing my way.
We’re all waiting for something – life is a constant game of catch, watching, waiting, hoping, and scrambling after the balls that inevitably bounce away. But if I keep my eye on the ball, the promises of God’s goodness and faithfulness, the truth that he sees me and loves me, despite my awkward attempts at a game that is too big for me – I can live with hope and trust, and maybe, just maybe, actually catch the ball every now and then.