The phone line sizzles red hot after the Good News Club that day.  I’m dog tired after leading 50 kindergarteners in songs and Bible stories.  That summer, after my first year at Princeton Seminary, I agree to lead a series of 8 weeklong Good News Clubs for the town’s children.  Everything runs swimmingly until…

On the phone is the mother of one of the kindergarten girls.  She’s incensed–the mother that is.  Going through the roof.  Off the charts.  Ballistic.  Well, you get the picture.  That morning I taught a cute song with these lyrics–‘Praise ye the Lord, Hallelujah!  Praise ye the Lord, Hallelujah!…Praise ye the Lord.’  Nice praise chorus.  Kids like it and we sing it a couple of times that day.

When this precious darling gets home, that’s when something falls off the tracks.  The little tyke bellows out these words–‘Crazy the Lord, Hallelujah, Crazy the Lord…’  What in the world am I teaching at this Good News Club?  Blasphemy?  Must admit I catastrophize, picturing the collapse of both seminary and ministry as both barely leave the starting gate!

I’m feeling misunderstood.  Who hasn’t?  Don’t call me a name-dropper, but Jesus experiences this all during His earthly ministry.  The religious high mucky-muck damn Him as demon possessed (Mark 3:22).  An ally of Satan?  Nice bunch.  His local religious friends snub their noses at Him for being merely the son of carpenter Joseph (Mark 6:1-6).  His disciples rarely get the point (Mark 4: 41; 6:51-52; 8:15-21).  His own family thinks He’s a nut case (Mark 3: 21).  Misunderstood?  At every turn.

But, unlike me, Jesus rises above it all.  His eyes are fixed on His Father’s love and the mission He’s been given.  That’s a hint.  Keep your focus locked in on Jesus.  And what He wants for you.  That’s real hard work.  Cutting out so many distractions in our over-crowded lives.  But that’s it, like it or not.

‘Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim…’  Understood?

Lord Jesus, thank you for being understanding.  Amen.