I walked through the living room and found my wife watching My Super Sweet Sixteen, an MTV show about über wealthy kids and how their parents help them celebrate their mile marker birthdays. I didn’t stick around for the whole episode but caught enough to generate wide-eyed looks to my wife. “You’ve got to be kidding me!”
“I know. What a waste! This girl is so spoiled.”
What I love about reality television is that the people who are idiots or worse and oblivious to their foibles and folly—despite their blame on editing—get revealed to the world for all their glory. I don’t doubt that producers and directors juxtapose incidents and cut non-agenda footage, but these jesters still generate the footage. And their 15 minutes of fame generates 30 minutes of infamy.
This fat Californian girl [NOT the girl pictured], dressed like she weighed far less, starts shopping with her friends. Since she’s buying, she gets to pick their outfits for her party. “They can’t look as good as me, because I’m the queen of the party,” she confesses to the camera (my paraphrase). I asked my wife, “What happens when these kids become adults? What kind of reality check will that be?”
Then the show flashes toward commercial with clips of other episodes and drama queens, reminding me of the last episode I caught on a similar walk through the living room. It was a quote from a teeny bopper that summed the series. It was something like, “I have to get what I want all the time.” It was mixed with references to just having to ask her daddy and implications of the pouting or other tactics she used to manipulate her will.
I walked silently down to my office in conviction.
Earlier this week, God allowed my Internet service provider to be unable to provide Internet—yet again—for the bulk of my busiest day of the week and the day my ads are due to the local paper. I had all but cried before the Lord to prove himself bigger than my cable company, to show he loved me by allowing me to work. I had the time, the willingness, and the deadline. “Why don’t you let me to work, God? You told me to provide for my family. You gave me these clients. Please, God, please!”
That’s my common response to the neutering effect of no internet service for my Internet-based business, a significant income with significant clients. I think more than any regular trial—and my cable company has shafted me as many as 26 days in a row this year and just about weekly after that—this brings me to my knees faster and more fervently than any other situation. I’ve even been very superstitious, praying over my machine and internet line before all else in the morning, sometimes literally laying prostrate on the floor of my office as some symbolic gesture to God.
In those steps from MTV to the basement, a small voice reminded me of my pouting. I had tried to manipulate God to not let me down, to give me what I want, to adapt to my will. My voice rang eerily similar to this obese gal picking out circus acts and ugly dresses. While Internet access for my company is a far more practical commodity than party decorations, the common concept remains: God is not here for us. We are here for him. His fatherly riches are available, but we are to seek his best use of them, not ours.
Not coincidentally, our prayer series in church this Sunday reinforced the idea that prayer is not about getting things or moving God. It’s a sweet intimacy, a conversational and candid communication. Or should be. Pastor Woody compared it to a marriage where the only time you interacted with your spouse was to get the “intimacy” of sex. Why would God give us great things, even menial things, if our only tone was demand or whine? Why would God enlighten us with his full plan, if we stomp over the quizzes and exchange tantrums for tests?
Too often, I demand my birth rite, my share of my heavenly inheritance. The joke’s on me, though, as I get closer and closer to taking God’s freedom to the pig pen. I’m the chunky chick exposing her immaturity to the watching world. But I’m glad God has given me the grace to overcome my 15 minutes of shame.
