Billie Jean is definitely not my lover by Jim Parker

I played trumpet in junior high band, sort of. I'll never forget those September nights, marching around on the freshly cut grass of the high school football field. I still remember the feel of my mouth piece bumping against my lips with every step I marched. And, how that plastic music holder bounced around atop my trumpet like a bobble head in an old station wagon.

I was never any good at the trumpet. I guess I didn't have the lips for it or something. When Michael Jackson's song Billie Jean was big our band chose that as one of its songs for our half time show. The trumpets all had this solo we were supposed to play. It was the melody to the chorus of the song. I remember struggling through that solo in the junior high band room trying my best to get it down and failing ever more with each puff on the trumpet. Then it happened. This girl who also played trumpet, I don't remember her name, but her face is still clear in my mind offered me some much needed but little wanted advice. She said, "just play it like it sounds." That statement sent me into a bout of nervous pre-teen angst the likes of which would accompany me through most of my formative years.

I grew up in a really conservative family. We had very little music in the house and what we did have was my Mom's old gospel quartet 78 records. I knew that day that my problem was not that I couldn't hit the notes, master the pitch, or keep the tempo of Billie Jean, it was in fact that I'd never heard the song. Here I was, a teenage boy, and I had never heard this Michael Jackson classic. I assumed at the time there were probably people living in caves in the most remote parts of the Dark Continent and that even they knew this song. I felt like such a loser. It was like I'd try to fake who and what I was all year long and suddenly this girl had grabbed at a loose thread and completely unraveled my persona in one tug.

You know a lot of days I still get that same feeling I had that day in the junior high band room. I've come a long ways since those days of red and white polyester band suits and feathered plastic band hats. The last few years I've really begun to discover who I am and what I'm here for. But when I get around the right people and feel someone tugging at that loose thread those same old feelings of insignificance come right back to the surface. Vision is being able to look into your future and see what God MIGHT do if we are willing to let him. Don't let people make you feel that you can't, that you are less, that you don't fit the mold. Vision is figuring out you can't but that God can. Vision is believing something bigger is ahead on the road of life. Vision is you being all God made you to be and understanding that under every persona there is a scared junior high boy or girl waiting for his world to crumble. Don't be intimadated. Go after the dreams God is dreaming with you and for you. It really won't matter if you know what Billie Jean sounds like or not.

4th Dimension Vision

What would life be like if we all lived with a blindfold on? Can you imagine doing life with a blindfold on? We know that wouldn’t make sense, it would cause all sorts of problems. So why do we insist on doing life without a vision.

Proverbs 29:18 says, “Without vision people will perish . . .” Vision in the Hebrew means to mentally perceive, gaze at, to have a vision of. What would it look like to have a vision for your life? What if you had a vision for your family, career, relationship, spiritual journey?

Take a look at this passage again in the Message version- “If people can’t see what God is doing, they stumble all over themselves; But when they attend to what he reveals they are most blessed.”

We want to introduce a new dimension of vision, it’s called the 4th dimension vision. The 4th dimension, as you know, consists of seeing, feeling, and experiencing the movie, as though it was happening. Similarly I want this to be true in our spiritual journey. 4th Dimension vision is this: Seeing God and joining His activity.

What would it be like to see God in your family and join Him in what He wants to do?

What would it be like to see God in your career and join Him in what He wants to do?

What would it be like to see God in your relationships and join Him in what He wants to do?

What would it be like to see God in your journey and join Him in what He wants to do?

Let's share
Take some time to recognize where God is . . . Can you see Him? If so, share it with us, reflect on it. If not, why? What is blocking your vision? What is getting in the way of seeing God? Encourage you to share that as well.