Thursday, June 16, 2011

I wanna be a Rock Star!

I guess I am on a song kick right now. This weekend I pulled out my i-Pod and listened to Nickelback's Rockstar. Here are a few lines from the song...
I'm through with standing in line
To clubs we'll never get in
It's like the bottom of the ninth
And I'm never gonna win
This life hasn't turned out
Quite the way I want it to be

(Tell me what you want)

I want a brand new house
On an episode of Cribs
And a bathroom I can play baseball in
And a king size tub big enough
For ten plus me

(So what you need?)

I'll need a credit card that's got no limit
And a big black jet with a bedroom in it
Gonna join the mile high club
At thirty-seven thousand feet

(Been there, done that)

I want a new tour bus full of old guitars
My own star on Hollywood Boulevard
Somewhere between Cher and
James Dean is fine for me

(So how you gonna do it?)

I'm gonna trade this life for fortune and fame
I'd even cut my hair and change my name

[Chorus:]
'Cause we all just wanna be big rockstars
And live in hilltop houses driving fifteen cars
The girls come easy and the drugs come cheap
We'll all stay skinny 'cause we just won't eat
And we'll hang out in the coolest bars
In the VIP with the movie stars
Every good gold digger's
Gonna wind up there
Every Playboy bunny
With her bleach blond hair
And so the song goes for another few verses, listing things that Chad Kroeger and the boys think will make them happy. Money, women, possessions, drugs, etc. I have to be careful jumping on the band because for many of us we want the exact same things - Christians and non-Christians alike. We spend so much time consumed with what this world says will make us happy that we begin to believe it. We begin to believe that all this stuff will fill the void, it will be the final piece of the puzzle that will make everything finally work.

We can look all the way back at Solomon's life and see that the stuff this world has to offer will not make us happy. It never has and it never will. Look at what Solomon says:
Ecclesiastes 2: 4-11 - 4 I undertook great projects: I built houses for myself and planted vineyards. 5 I made gardens and parks and planted all kinds of fruit trees in them. 6 I made reservoirs to water groves of flourishing trees. 7 I bought male and female slaves and had other slaves who were born in my house. I also owned more herds and flocks than anyone in Jerusalem before me. 8 I amassed silver and gold for myself, and the treasure of kings and provinces. I acquired men and women singers, and a harem as well—the delights of the heart of man. 9 I became greater by far than anyone in Jerusalem before me. In all this my wisdom stayed with me.

10 I denied myself nothing my eyes desired;
I refused my heart no pleasure.
My heart took delight in all my work,
and this was the reward for all my labor.
11 Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done
and what I had toiled to achieve,
everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind;
nothing was gained under the sun.
Solomon went after everything this world had to offer and in the end he said it was meaningless! After a look back over his life he came to the following conclusion:
Ecclesiastes 12: 13
Now all has been heard;
here is the conclusion of the matter:
Fear God and keep his commandments,
for this is the whole duty of man.
This is where true satisfaction is found. Not in material things, not in anything tangible but in a right relationship with Him. If our desire for fellowship with God were as strong as our desire to be a Rock Star imagine how different our lives would be! Rock on!

3 comments:

  1. Lamar,

    I came across your blog via facebook: Christian Bloggers Network. This was a great post. Thanks for sharing. I've become a follower.

    My blog is Manifest Blog if you're interested.

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  2. I quite enjoyed how you took this song and dissected it to show how hollow it really is :)

    I recently read that portion of Ecclesiastes...and God really put it on my heart that so many things I have done in this life are meaningless, a chasing after the wind. Temporary.

    Hmm...I shall ask a question, if that is acceptable: You say that we should get in a right relationship with God. You say we should do that because it is in Him that our satisfaction/fulfillment is found. How would one accomplish that?

    (I came upon your blog from the youtube video of Francis Chan and the Balance Beam story. A great metaphor :) )

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