With the news of Kenny Rogers passing away, of course I thought about his heyday, and his music's ongoing presence in my life. I wasn't a big fan of Kenny Rogers, but if you listened to the radio at all--or rode in an elevator, for that matter--he was inescapable. So my mind went to which songs of his I remembered. "You've got to know when to hold 'em, known when to fold 'em"--his song "The Gambler"--popped into my mind first. His duet with Dolly Parton "Islands in the Stream" was the second that came to mind. And then I thought of one that, interestingly enough, might connect up with this Sunday's sermon about "Loving God More Dearly". Stick with me here.
The song "She Believes in Me" was No. 1 on both the Billboard Country Singles and Adult Contemporary charts in 1979, and went to No. 5 in the Pop singles chart--a true "crossover" success. As one description says, the song is the story of a musician, a singer/songwriter, who is struggling in his career, while his wife supports his musical pursuits. His lack of major success leaves him wondering why she is so supportive even as he is obviously very grateful that she does. The song's chorus:
And she believes in me, I'll never know just what she sees in me I told her someday if she was my girl, I could change the world
With my little songs, I was wrong
But she has faith in me, and so I go on trying faithfully
And who knows maybe on some special night, if my song is right
I will find a way, find a way
Clearly "she believes in me" conveys an aspect of love, doesn't it? She loves him, and that love conveys clearly to him that her support is unwavering, no matter how it seems to him he's not succeeding like he wants to. He can't fully understand why she keeps on believing in him since he declares unequivocally that his attempt to "change the world with my little songs" clearly isn't happening, which he had promised he could do "if she's my girl". But he knows that her love--her belief in him--is what makes it possible for him to keep trying. And in the midst of his wonder about how she keeps believing in him, it seems obvious that he loves her deeply just as she loves him.
Friends, this is how God loves us, and believes in us, and hangs in there with us as we keep at what we are committed to do with our lives. Sometimes maybe one of "our little songs" touches another person's life (it probably happens more often than we think it does). Sometimes something clicks. Probably more often than not we feel like we are making no difference, despite our best and most sincere efforts. And there are times when we aren't what we want to be, or ought to be, and we get discouraged, and wonder how we could possibly matter to anyone, even to God. But God never stops believing in us. God never stops loving us. Never. Maybe the way we "love God more dearly" is to respond to that assurance of God's love for us with the kind of love the singer has for his devoted, faithful, loving wife as depicted in this song--and for the same reasons. Gratitude for her constant encouragement, no matter how disappointed he feels in himself. Wonder and amazement that she hangs in there with him, always believing in him (notice belief is not merely an intellectual agreeing with something, but an emotional and spiritual sustaining). Humility and tenderness for her belief in him that strengthens his resolve to keep at it.
Believing in God is indeed "loving God more dearly"--since that is how God loves us and believes in us.
Matthew 22:34-40
34 When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, 35 and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36 ‘Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?’ 37 He said to him, ‘ “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” 38 This is the greatest and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.’
1 Corinthians 13
1 If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. 4 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. 7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. 9 For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; 10 but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. 13 And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.