From Psalm 37 to the King of Pop: Where Else Can You Find This Kind of Variety?

OK, I’ll just come right out and say it. I was a Michael Jackson fan. I am a true product of 1980’s teen culture—I’ve got the senior picture to prove it—and the Thriller album was our soundtrack. It was the first cassette tape I bought with my own money. (I nodded at this quote from Wikipedia: “At some point, Thriller stopped selling like a leisure item—like a magazine, a toy, tickets to a hit movie—and started selling like a household staple.”)

I got my Thriller tape the summer between sixth and seventh grades. Those were pinnacle years of my youth, spent in a little town in southwestern Oklahoma. We were about as far off the cultural radar screen as a town could be, but Thriller still managed to find us. I will never forget watching the video debut on MTV, a marvel of modern technology that had made its way to the sticks. I sat around the TV with a room full of pubescent girls. We screamed. We cried. We watched over and over again, sometimes in slow motion. We formed a Michael Jackson fan club on the spot. No matter that it was slightly creepy and we were clueless about the historical impact of a video full of African-Americans appearing on MTV for the first time. We just thought it was cool.

Up to that point, I’d never actually known a black person. I’m not even sure I knew Michael Jackson was black (and he still was in the early 80s). It didn’t matter if I did. I’d never heard of the Jackson Five, Motown, or the Apollo theater. I thought Paul McCartney was just that funny old guy who sang along on Michael’s song “The Girl Is Mine.” My world was small, but I knew every word to “We Are the World,” how to fake the moonwalk, how to strut my stuff to “Beat It” in my polyester cheerleading skirt.

By the time I got to college in the ’90s, my childhood crush was gone, and Michael was well on his way to becoming Wacko Jacko. Still, one night at a square dance at my very, very white Christian college, I watched a group of very, very white college students break out into Thriller dance moves, totally in sync, totally from memory. No one who grew up in the ’80s escaped its influence.

I bet I wasn’t the only middle-aged mom who shed a few tears last week as I watched tributes to one who so powerfully shaped my generation. I was in seventh grade all over again, remembering who I was with and what I was wearing (ee-gads!) when those Michael Jackson songs played continually on every boom box. I sat my kids down for a two-minute tutorial on this man whose death is all over the news. I didn’t try to explain how a black man becomes white or the freaky behavior or his unprecedented cultural influence. I just told them that when I think of Michael Jackson, I remember a lot of really good days, big hair and all.

Simple Instructions

I think I may have a new favorite psalm. My lifelong allegiance to Psalm 139 makes me feel like a traitor for even considering a new favorite. It’s hard to beat that description of being knit together in the womb—especially when you’ve got a womb that’s seen as much action as mine. And that psalm ends with one of my life’s most consistent prayers: “Search me, O God, and know my heart. . . . See if there is any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting.”

But about 100 chapters earlier, I’ve found gentle words that hit me like a bulldozer. In the midst of all my mental wrestling and questioning and wondering, here I find simple instructions for living.

“Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him and he will do this: He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun. Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him; do not fret.”

In my previous encounters with this passage, I was all over the rewards: getting the desires of my heart, shining like the dawn. Bring ’em on, God! Even the safe pasture thing sounds lovely, though I haven’t actually been in a pasture since 1979.

But today I read this chapter with more mature eyes. There are commands attached to those rewards. Hello! The commands are short and clear:

Trust in the Lord.
Do good.
Delight in the Lord.
Commit your ways to Him.
Be still and wait patiently.
Do not fret.

Doesn’t that pretty much sum up everything He wants from us? The word “love” doesn’t appear there, but surely it can be assumed in the command to “do good.” If you’re not doing good out of love, it’s probably not all that good.

What if this were my checklist; how would I be doing? I don’t struggle much with trusting and committing, but delighting? Hmmm. Being still and patient? Yeah, that’s a problem. And what about fretting? That’s most easily answered by what I find myself doing about 4:30 each morning—laying in bed, wide awake, my restless mind bombarded with thoughts. Let’s just call it what it is—fretting.

So while I love you Psalm 139 and you’ll always have a special place in my heart, Psalm 37 has chased me down, lassoed me in, and is staring me down eyeball to eyeball: Trust. Delight. Be patient. Do not fret.

Where Are the Miracles?

So here’s what I’ve been wondering about this week. Why does it seem like things always turn out the way they’re supposed to? Why don’t we see more Great Interventions from God? More unquestionable miracles?

We got a history lesson in church on Sunday from a man who spent his 50th wedding anniversary touring all the famed Roman locations where Christians were fed to lions and burned at the stake. (Note to self: Not how I want to spend my 50th anniversary.) He told us about Polycarp, a second-century bishop who was burned at the stake. The good news is that he was 86 and faithful to the very end; the bad news is that faithful or not, it had to hurt. Now surely God could have rescued Polycarp in some dramatic fashion. You may be thinking, “Well if He didn’t rescue Jesus, what makes you think He’d rescue this guy?” I have to go with the obvious answer—that Polycarp wasn’t key to the whole salvation of mankind. I mean, what’s the impact on all eternity if God swoops down with an angel or two or even a couple dozen pigeons and pulls Polycarp out of the fire? Couldn’t He have done this for the old guy—and for His own glory? Instead, Polycarp died. Sure enough. Just what everyone expected. The pagan crowds probably all cheered as he went up in flames.

And then there’s my friends’ son, who died of a disease that has a 98 percent mortality rate. Doctors told them he would die. Friends all hoped for a miracle, but very few were all that surprised when he died. Why no miracle, God? Think how you could have shaken up the medical community! What a mark it would have made in the research journals.

I know that miracles happen every day. I’m just wondering why we don’t get to see many of them, especially the big ones. Why isn’t God more flamboyant?

All I can come up with is this: He must think the greatest miracle of all is when His children suffer greatly and yet continue to glorify His name.

What Happens in Vegas

Kevin and I were out for a late-night stroll Sunday when Elvis drove by, all sparkly and spangly. We smiled nonchalantly, then Kevin added, “If we were anyplace else . . . ”

But we were in Vegas, where Elvises are a dime a dozen.

For the second year in a row, as we huffed and puffed to the end of another school year, Kevin and I decided we needed a mental health get-away. We considered several different places, but Las Vegas beckoned to us once again, luring us in with its cheap prices, short plane ride, and guaranteed sunshine. While I couldn’t care less about gambling, Vegas is home to some of the things I love dearly: Cheap rooms in hotels with marble floors, jetted tubs, and spectacular pools. Dancing fountains at the Bellagio that move me like very few things on earth. Chihuly blown glass and an indoor garden that make me actually care about art and flowers. Endless buffets where the food is just as much artistry as necessity. Desert temperatures. Donny and Marie.

The weekend served its purpose well. Kevin and I got luxurious, restful time together. We poured no juice, listened to no whining, and cared for no one but ourselves for two glorious days. We laughed and lounged and experienced weird things that can only happen in Vegas—like having a quiet time under an advertisement for a stripper or watching a wedding in our swimming suits. Oh, yeah, and waving to Elvis at 10 o’clock on a Sunday night.

But as is always the case, after 48 hours I was Vegased out. The excess of everything in Vegas—skin, smoke, noise, people, waste, hedonism—gets old fast. So does the desensitization. When your heart ceases to break over the weary, weathered, hollow-eyed Hispanic woman standing on the hot street trying to thrust porn in your face, it’s time to leave. What happens in Vegas may stay there, but I’m glad I get to go home.

The Gang's All Here—Oh, No!

Though you’d never know it by our schizophrenic Colorado weather, summer has arrived here at our house. The field days, classroom parties, and nonstop activity of the past two weeks have given way to lazy mornings and the unending search for something to do. I’ve heard that boredom is a child’s best friend. It’s when they’re bored that they write, draw, imagine, create. I love this idea in theory, but in my experience, it’s also when they fight.

If it didn’t require potty-training a toddler or breaking up fights between hair-pulling siblings, parenting would be pure joy. But the incessant bickering, blaming, poking, tattling, squabbling, and screeching wears me down. A child’s home may be the laboratory in which they learn to get along with others and resolve conflict, but we’re one stolen Lego away from thermonuclear meltdown. And I’m the mad scientist running around with all sorts of theories and formulas trying to make order out of this chaos.

This summer, I vow to turn the corner. This is the summer that will be different, the one the kids will remember, for better or for worse. We will learn to harness all that energy for good instead of evil, getting over ourselves in pursuit of loving and serving others. We will work as a team, realizing and applauding each other’s unique contributions. Brooka’s older siblings will see her friendliness as a gift instead of a constant embarrassment. The girls will see Braden’s need for structure as useful instead of bossy and confining. Addison, the middle child who fights in both directions, will somehow be the glue that holds us all together.

And by the end of the summer, maybe that toddler will have potty-trained herself.

A mom can always hope.

Obedience

In Crazy Love, Francis Chan tells the story of a friend of his who was speaking at a church. Afterward, a guy came up and told the speaker, “I’d go serve God as a missionary overseas, but honestly, right now, I’d only be doing it out of obedience.” His friend’s response? “Yes, so . . .?”

I totally relate to this would-be missionary. God’s been showing me pretty clearly how He feels about the poor and that I need to be part of the solution to their plight. You could say that’s a “calling.” But it’s not like I’m suddenly real comfortable with people who are a lot different from me. Or that I’m excited to spend my days in a neighborhood that seems worlds away from my own. (In reality, they’re about ten miles apart.) I don’t necessarily feel a surge of love for the poor. I’m pretty sure if I took one of those nifty five-minute “Identify Your Spiritual Gifts” tests on the Internet, mercy would still be sitting at the bottom of my list. I wish I could say my Republican-leaning heart has totally changed. It has, a little. But it’s not my heart that’s propelling me to action. It’s simple obedience.

Chan writes: “Jesus said, ‘If you love me, you will obey what I command’ (John 14:15). Jesus did not say, ‘If you love me, you will obey me when you feel called or good about doing so.’ If we love, then we obey. Period.”

Just recently, our family has been challenged with some practical opportunities to serve the poor. None of them is something I would choose. They’re inconvenient and costly. They make us uncomfortable. They come at a time when we’re trying to sell our house and I’m trying to finish up a book project. They interfere with the baby’s nap.

Yes, so . . . ?

I initially responded by trying to rationalize my way out of them. I didn’t get very far on that road before Obedience stepped in. So we act—not out of passionate calling or great love and compassion for the poor, as much as I wish I could say that’s what it is—but out of obedience. And my hunch is that feelings really do follow actions. I’ll let you know.

Finding Time

Time management is not my strongest skill. As I fall into bed every night, my ears ring with Annie Dillard’s famous quote: “How you spend your days is how you spend your life.” It’s a little depressing to think I’m spending my life folding clothes, giving baths, and watching American Idol.

The sermon I heard this weekend provided some good perspective. The Greek language has two types of “time.” One is chronos, meaning calendar-type time, and the other is kairos, meaning seasonal-type of time. (OK, you throngs of Greek scholars reading this will know that’s Greek for preschoolers, but since I spend all my time with preschoolers, you shouldn’t expect anything more from me.) It’s a 21st-century western-culture phenomenon that we spend more time planning the hours of our lives than the seasons of our lives. But the pastor encouraged us to take a step back from our DayTimers and consider how to use our time at this particular season of life.

My season is easily defined: young kids and transition. So the question becomes, how do I honor God, worship Him with my whole life, in the little-kid season of life? That one’s pretty easy for me. Ten years spent hanging out in Kidville have taught me a thing or two, and it’s not hard to see that introducing new God-honoring, God-worshiping, God-serving adults into the world is pretty significant, not to mention time-consuming.

The transition phase—complete with words like “wait,” “sit,” and “trust”—is harder. What does worshiping God look like here? Yeah, probably a lot of waiting, sitting, and trusting—only without the grumbling.

The speaker also talked about putting the “big rocks” in the jar first, because if you first fill it with sand and pebbles, the big important rocks can’t squeeze in. I’m challenged to figure out what the big rocks of my life are—both ideally (what I want them to be) and realistically (what they actually are). If you followed me around for a week, you might think my big rocks are reading People magazine, picking up toys, and standing at the counter grazing on whatever food remnants happen to be there. But you’d also see some Bible reading, journaling, relationship-building, exercising, and a whole lot of kid-cuddling. A transition season is a good time to figure out this big-rock business.

I’ve got a lot of work to do. Better manage my time well.