For over a year my oldest son had wanted to become one of those overnight rock stars. He’d been watching T.V. programs that showed the extravagant life styles that the hip hop stars and other kinds of singing stars had. They showed the million dollar homes these people owned, garages filled with expensive cars and motorcycles, the thousands of dollars they spent on everyday items that we have very little to spend on, and of course their own way of doing things and getting away with it. This lifestyle appealed to him greatly and this is what he wanted. He had the idea that all he had to do was form a band, cut a demo, and send it to a recording company. That recording company would then call him and sign him up to a recording deal. My son was about 15 or so when he first started talking about it. The talk would go away during the summer, but then would resume a short while after he started back to school. By this time he was almost 17 years old and still thought it would be that easy. Well, I thought I could use this as an opportunity to try to get a point across.

I began telling him about the time way back when I sort of had a dream of becoming a rock star. Only I knew that rock for me would have been the soft rock of the day, not the heavy metal he was talking about. I had always loved to sing. Even though I never had voice lessons, so to speak, and didn’t know if I had a good voice for it. I just knew I loved to sing. I did actually try out once for a group that traveled and performed in night clubs around the country. They had a regular tour they did, but they needed a singer; someone who could travel without worry or too many ties. Well, at that time I fit the bill. I was single and without family around, so I decided to try out. There were many things that were against it. I had never used a mike, or sung with a band, or sung on stage. I had no idea what type of music I could sing well, and I’d never changed tempo in the middle of a song. All of these things came to pass during the try out, well, except those trying out never got on stage. Needless to say it was an absolute bust. They were nice about it and told me to get used to using a mike and then come back and try again the next time they were in town. It didn’t stop me from dreaming. In the mean time I had to make a living and eventually the dream sort of faded to the background. After so long, I realized that it would probably never happen the way I’d dreamed. By that time I’d understood that there are no real “overnight” stars anyway. My son turned his head at me sideways and looked at me with his eyes narrowed a bit and said “Well, Mom, you kinda are a rock star.”

God does speak through our children at times doesn’t he? That statement shut me up in a hurry. It brought to mind the story of the three trees that all had grand dreams of what they wanted to be. I don’t really remember all of them, but I remember one became the feeding trough for animals to eat hay from. It also became the bed for the infant King to sleep in. The one I more fully remember was the one that wanted to become a large grand ship that would carry kings across the oceans. He became the small boat that carried Jesus across the lake.

The dreams the trees had were dreams from the world’s point of view. This is all we know while we are growing up. What they became was God’s point of view of those same dreams. How much grander to have carried the King of kings, than to just carry kings! The desires of our heart are what God wants to give us, but the Bible says his ways are not our ways. My son had said I was kind of a rock star. What he saw week after week was me standing in front of our little congregation at church leading worship. This picture flashed in my head when he made the statement. He related this as kind of being a rock star. It came to me tonight again as well as the story of the three trees. Maybe, God sees worship leaders as stars; stars that he made to shine for him as he made those in the heavens to show his glory to all who see them. This is the difference between the world’s view and God’s view. God does answer prayers, but not always in the way we’re thinking of. I pray that I shine for him, not me.