"If You Want Me To"

"The pathway is broken, and the times are unclear.

And I don't know the reason, why you brought me here.

But just because you love me, the way that you do,

I'm gonna walk through the valley, if you want me to.



'Cause I'm not who I was, when I took my first step.

And I'm clinging to the promise you're not through with me yet

and if all of these trials bring me closer to you,

then I will go through the fire, if you want me to.



It may not be the way I would have chosen,

when you lead me through a world that's not my own.

But you never said it would be easy,

You only said I'd never go alone.



So when the whole world turns against me,

and I'm all by myself,

and I can't hear you answer my cries for help.

I'll remember that suffering your love put you through,

and I will walk through the valley, if you want me to."
-Ginny Owens


I don't know about you, but the message in that song is really hard to live out. A few years ago, I heard someone say that sometimes that hardest thing to do in a difficult situation is to just go through it. Instead of bailing, and running away as fast as you can, to go through it until it's done, and learn what God wants you to learn. I think that in good situations and in bad ones, God allows us to go through the valley because He knows that if we cling to Him, and we don't stray, we'll come out of it stronger than if we had stayed on the mountain top.

Sometimes that is just so hard to do isn't it? When we are in a nasty situation that we are having such difficulty with, it's so hard to just sit and be still and ask "what is it You want me to learn in this?". Our gut reaction is to say "God get me out of here fast!! I'm miserable!" I figure, if I'm going to be going through this, I might as well learn something from it. It's a learning process to change my thought pattern from "rescue me!" to "If you want me to."

The Real American Idol

Yesterday, I was at Best Buy, helping a friend look for a camera, when I walked by a cardboard shelf that was advertising something related to American Idol. I didn't even see the product, all I saw was the top of the board that said in big letters "Idolize Yourself!" That immediately took my thoughts from Panasonic versus Canon and Wal-Mart prices versus Costco prices to "WHAT IN THE WORLD?!?!? Idolize MYSELF?!?!?"

I know it was just a play on words, but it really started me thinking how true that simple little idea really is in our culture. More and more it's all about "me" it's all about what I want, when I want it and how I want it. It doesn't matter if it's bad for me or someone else, or even just plain wrong, if I want it, then I somehow have a "right" to it.

If you think about it, so many websites are dedicated to the idea of you showing yourself to the world. YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, blogging, and so many others are based on YOU. While that's not always bad (I go on YouTube, I am on Facebook, Twitter, and I blog), it's amazing but not surprising how our culture, on the Internet and off, caters to and dare I say, encourages, the ME attitude we all have.

This attitude and line of thinking actually has a rather official-sounding name: Secular Humanism. According to Dictionary.com, those two words mean:

"the doctrine emphasizing a person's capacity for self-realization through reason; rejects religion and the supernatural [syn: humanism]"

That definition sounds pretty scary to me. If I am the only source of self-realization, if my views are the only "true" ones, then can't every person come up with his own version of the truth? Who can say murder is wrong if I think it's okay (that's strictly an example only!!)? Why do I have to follow anything anyone else tells me to do if I can just make up my own rules?

This view of the world and of myself has to reject God or any superior being, because if there is a God, and He has laid the ground-rules for my life, then that means I can't "self-realize" anymore. That means He is telling me what is right and wrong, I can't just make it up anymore. That also means He is telling me who I am (and I mean really, how can it get any better than being the daughter of the Creator of the Universe? Really?) I'm not making up my own identity.

What a mess we would have if we all made up our own rules to life and living. I could jump out of a plane at 30,000 feet without a parachute and just believe in myself and try to convince myself that I could fly, but I when I have about 20 feet to go until I hit the ground, maybe I'll realize that somebody else made the laws of gravity and I can't just "self-realize" them out of existence. That is in effect what so many people are trying to do when they mess around with social order, nature, relationships and truth. They are basing the rules on their OWN thoughts rather than GOD's thoughts. So please, let's not idolize ourselves. We just get into huge messes when we do.

That's Allstate's Stand

A few months ago I was enjoying a quiet afternoon without much to do, so I was checking out a few listings on Imdb.com. I happened to be cleaning out my room around that time and had a bunch of random stuff sitting around, including a baseball given to me the first year I played on a team, the year I was 8. My two coaches were Coach Kerry and Coach Dennis. I had heard a few times that my Coach Dennis was supposedly a semi-famous movie star at the time. I say "supposedly" because my parents nor I knew him as a movie-star. We just knew him as my coach. I had never actually verified that he was a movie-star, but that didn't really matter when I was 8 years old, just learning how to swing and throw and field.

Coach Dennis was an especially patient person, which was needed on my team, since I was the only girl there! I remember quite fondly him teaching us the rules about pop flies, about foul tips, and him working specifically with me on my swing, which I got to be pretty proud of. I wish I had kept better track of a really neat photo I had with my two coaches, Kerry and Dennis on the last day of the season. They both could have been movie stars for all I knew, but all I cared about was that they had patiently and lovingly taught me the great American game, one they knew so well and passed on to all of us on the team.

So back to my aimless wanderings on Imdb.com. Seeing that baseball reminded me that if Coach Dennis was indeed a movie-star, he must have a listing on this site to prove it. So, I entered his name, and oh boy, yes, is he a movie-star. He has starred in numerous baseball movies, and many popular tv shows including The Unit, 24, and some old shows like Quincy, M.E. (which happens to be my favorite show of all time), and Laverne and Shirley. Besides that, he is the face of the Allstate Insurance company. He's the guy who always says "Are you in good hands? That's Allstate's stand." Click here to see a video of him in action: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBAwXN8lS88&feature=related

So my coach was indeed a movie star! That was a neat thought, thinking that back when I was little, so oblivious to who he was and what he was "known" for, he had been my personal friend, coaching me in the fine points of baseball, cheering me on, and just being an all-around great person. It kind-of makes my memory of him even more special knowing that I didn't even know he was so well-known, and he didn't make that fact a big part of his ego. My Mom said that she once asked him what he did for a living and he quite simply answered "I'm an actor, what do you do?" He wasn't the type of person that walked around with a commanding presence, that you thought "Oh, he must be a well-known person of some kind!" He was just your average joe-blow who happened to be a very well-known actor.

In his commercials, Dennis always asks his viewers if they are in good hands, and I started thinking about that the last time I saw one of his commercials. How do I know I am really in good hands? Now, I know that he is referring to good insurance, but how do you know your actual soul is in good hands? If life insurance is important, how much more important is your life?

I was going to look for some obscure reference to life in the book of Habakkuk if I could find it, but then I realized that one of the most well-known (if not the most) scriptures of all time has the promise of life in it.

John 3:16 says "For God loved the world so much that He sent His one and only Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life." That means that when we become believers, we have the promise of God that we have eternal life. That means that our spirit (not our physical bodies) will never end, will never die, will never be gone. How much safer could you get than that? Knowing that even if your physical body dies (which it will someday), the essence of who you are, the part of you that makes you who you are, your soul, will still be alive, and with God is such an amazingly comforting thought. As a Christian, I know for a fact, that I am indeed in good hands. Are you?