As a sixteen-year-old High School student, one of the things I loved most about getting my driver’s license was the fact that I would no longer have to ride the bus to school. I had a great indisposition toward riding the school bus. I was in two different wrecks while riding a school bus. I threw a rock and accidentally busted out a window of a school bus. Half the fights I ever got into in my life were on a school bus. I was bullied on a school bus. I heard language on a school bus I heard nowhere else. I saw things on a school bus I saw nowhere else. I learned more about what not to do in life while riding a school bus. Over the course of my early years in school, I went from being scared to ride the school bus, to tolerating the school bus, to being embarrassed to ride the school bus, to hating to ride the school bus. I suppose it’s safe to say, while it did toughen me up quite a bit, the school bus held very little in the way of affirmation in my life.
This is the same reason why I wrestled greatly over whether to let my kids ride the bus to school. But eventually convenience won out, and my kids rode the bus just like I did. However, unlike me, they wanted to ride the bus, which is another reason we let them ride the bus. In as much as I’ve always been able, I’ve consistently tried to see my boys off to school and watch them get on the bus in the morning. The routine has always been the same…gather to pray, watch them walk to the end of the street, wave, shout, and then watch them ride off.
But the 5th grade year of my youngest son Baylon was quite different than any other year. It happened the first day of school and continued every single day to the last day of that same school year in 2020. He did something I totally didn’t expect. It was something I never would have done in all my years of riding the bus to school. He ran to the school bus stop. Down the street, to the corner he would go, backpack shaking rigorously on his back, he would sprint. He made that run every single day of the school year. I fell in love with it from the first moment I saw it. He was never late for the bus. He ran by choice, of his own free will, with such passion, excitement, and enthusiasm! No one made him do it, he chose it.
The first time I saw him do it, I admired his passion, his enthusiasm, his vigor. I love the posture he chose. His bus was yellow just like mine. His bus was slow just like mine. He heard profanity and was ridiculed on his bus just like me. His bus was big and loud just like mine. He dealt with people who picked on him just like I did. But he ran to his bus. I labored just to get the courage and strength to walk to my bus. I scorned the proposition of getting on my bus. Baylon went like lightning to his bus and ran to it…every…single…day.
The more I watched him run that school year, the more I thought to myself, “I wonder if certain things in my life would have been different if I had taken the posture to run to the bus?” I spent a good bit of my High School years and the first two years of college running from things I should have run toward. But at about age 20, something clicked in me, and I began running toward things rather than running away from them. As a result, I’ve spent my adult life running toward less traveled roads. Probably for both good and bad. I often wonder if any of that is some subconscious reaction to running from things my first twenty years.
In life, you don’t get to choose what or who is on your bus. You don’t get to cushion the events of your life in a way as to manipulate or steer away from all trouble or hardship. If you live long enough, it will find you. You can try to avoid it, and you may be successful in some areas, temporarily. But I’m not convinced you’ll be better for it. You won’t always be able to steer around the “bus stops” of life. But you can choose how you go toward or through them.
In the famed story of the battle between David and Goliath, 1 Samuel 17:48 says “As Goliath moved closer to attack, David quickly ran toward the fray to meet him.” I’ve always loved that verse. David wasn’t positioning himself or looking for trouble, nor should we. However, when trouble came looking for him, he “ran toward the fray.”
Many days, my son Baylon got off the bus with a rough story. But he always got up and ran to the bus stop with enthusiasm the next day. I want to be able to get up each day and run toward the events of that day with hope, expectancy, and passion…no matter what I may be facing. If I get knocked down, if I fail, so be it. God grant me the strength to get up and run back the next day!
I don’t want to cower in fear. I don’t want to be paralyzed by anxiety or worry. I want to be able to run toward my dreams and not away from them. I want to run toward every breath I’m given! Even if I’m unsure about what I’m running toward may hold, I want to take delight even in the jubilance of that momentary dash! If the backpack I’m carrying is heavy, then let is shake rigorously behind me! Even if my life is faced with great trepidation, I want to run like a kid running to the school bus stop. And if I look back, I want see my Father standing in the road smiling in approval, shouting, and basking in the joy of the run with me.