But sometimes the true meaning of a verse is BENEATH the surface, not right on top. Sometimes a verse means exactly what it appears to mean. So what do we do with this verse? Well, I’ve got a few thoughts. Especially for innocent kids with innocent longings. It’s that exact combination – short and catchy yet theologically inscrutable – that makes Psalm 37:4, in my mind, perhaps the most dangerous verse in the Bible. Then why didn’t I get my mini-car? Wasn’t I “delighted” enough with God? If I practiced my “delight” a little harder, THEN would I get my mini-car? What level of holy delight must I achieve, say, on a scale of 1 to 10? Will a six get me a mini-car? What about a pony? What about world peace? How, exactly, does this magic trick work?!? Delight yourself in the Lord, and he’ll give you whatever you want.
Nowadays it’s Photoshopped all over Instagram. You hear it in church or on Christian radio or see it cross-stitched on a friend’s dining room wall. “Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” Instead, I was deeply disappointed.Īnd so you learn early on that just because you want something doesn’t mean God is going to give it to you. It wasn’t for revenge, or for all the money in the world. God had not come through for me.Īnd so a six-year old boy had his first experience with unanswered prayer. When I finally had the nerve to pull back the curtain, I stared at an empty driveway. Marlin Perkins and I would drive responsibly around Omaha. There was nothing immoral about a mini-car. I prayed that God would grant my wish – that sometime in the night He himself would have taken a wrench to the mini-car in Peony Park and delivered it, Santa-like, to my grandparent’s driveway on Charles Street. Realizing I had been dreaming, I urgently set about to make my dream a reality by praying for the mini-car to be there in the driveway when I looked out the window. “That kid from Iowa’s nose has a sweet ride!” they’d say.
I dreamt that I awoke the next morning to find my gleaming mini-car in the driveway, polished and waiting for my six year-old foot to stomp on the gas and blaze out onto Charles Street, local kids staring in envious awe. That night, sleeping at my grandparents’ house on Charles Street, I dreamt about my mini-car. I could mini-drive over to see Marlin Perkins, who would say, “Nice ride! Shall we go on safari together? I’ll bring my rhino!” And then he’d fetch a rhino from somewhere near the accounting department.
#Dreams in the bible free
A wrench, I figured, was all it would take to free one from the track and then I could be mini-driving all over Omaha. And gas-powered.Īfter my first taste of powered driving I was hooked. It was limited free will, but it was free will nonetheless. I had never before experienced the thrill of steering a powered vehicle, nevermind the fact that the rail in the center of the roadway gave no more than 18 inches of steering leeway from one side to the other. My favorite was the small track where kids could drive mini gas-powered cars, like Disney’s Autopia. The next most exciting thing in Omaha was Peony Park, a small family amusement park featuring flowers, slides, and an modest assortment of unambitious kiddie rides. And his animals.” It never occurred to me that the show wasn’t filmed in Omaha. Driving by the Mutual of Omaha building as a kid, I remember thinking, “Marlin Perkins is in there somewhere. As far as I was concerned, Marlin Perkins was the Walt Disney of non-robotic animals. Each week animal expert Marlin Perkins took America all over the world to see dangerous and exciting animals.
#Dreams in the bible tv
When I was young, the most exciting part of arriving in Omaha was driving by the Mutual of Omaha building, famous for the hit TV show Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom. We’d hit Iowa’s butt, then flop across the Missouri River to Omaha. So at least twice a year we’d pack up the car and toddle all the way from Iowa’s nose to Iowa’s, well, butt, I guess. In case you’ve never noticed, the eastern edge of Iowa looks sort of like a face, and my hometown was on Iowa’s nose.īut my mother was from Omaha, all the way across the other side of Iowa on Nebraska’s eastern edge.
I grew up in a small town on the eastern edge of Iowa. For the record, I consider Psalm 37:4 to be one of the – if not the – most dangerous verse in the Bible. And, sooner or later, the quoting of Psalm 37:4. Since we Americans love, love, love our dreams, that topic always provokes a response. Recently I wrote a post about dreams and desires, and whether our dreams today are the same as dreams in the Bible. Once upon a time there was a young boy who wanted a tiny car very, very badly.