What Will You Do When You Wake Up in Hickory?

What Will You Do When You Wake Up in Hickory?

 (Part 1)

Buckle up. Today is quite a ride. Our minds, hearts, and words have several stops to make, some abrupt and unexpected, some bumpy, too.

First stop: the book of Psalms. Begin there each day, and you’ll soon discover it will lead to many probing questions and thoughts, followed possibly—should you write next—by inspiring words that fit into a hundred sentences like the pieces of a puzzle into a perfect frame.

Words, when infused with inspiration, assisted (some think) by the planets that happen to line up across the night sky as they did on February 28 for the last time until 2040—have a way to write themselves.

Those handpicked nouns and verbs, along with their little friends, form sentences—simple or complex, clear and unmistakable or ambiguous and poetic—all together serve to lead your mind where it needs to go, or your mind leads those words (I am still not sure which). They lead to worlds that, at the outset, are unknown, but not for long. They become mind-changing and perhaps life-changing by the time you nail the very last line like an Olympic gymnast on a landing. Without a flinch.

Today we are word travelers—journeying to Psalms, to a gospel masterpiece of music, then to a poem about an optimistic little boy read in a classroom that could be any of ten thousand, then to the greatest sports movie of all time, and, finally, to a young coach in central Texas almost four decades ago who learned a lesson for the ages. 

Word Travel 101!

When the odyssey takes us not to Disneyland or to Wonderland but to Hoosierland, we'll have to ask the question we asked those thousands of young men and women, "What are you going to do when you wake up in Hickory?”

The answer will not come for years, perhaps decades, but it will come. “Trust me on this,”

I’d say.

Our first stop is with the psalmist:

Psalm 42—

“Why am I discouraged? Why is my heart so sad? I will put my hope in God! I will praise him again—my Savior and my God! … I will remember you—even from distant Mount Hermon, the source of the Jordan, from the land of Mount Mizar I hear the tumult of the raging seas as your waves and surging tides sweep over me. But each day the Lord pours his unfailing love upon me, and through each night I sing his songs, praying … ‘O God my rock … why have you forgotten me? Their taunts break my bones. They scoff, Where is this God of yours?’ … I will put my hope in God! I will praise him again—my Savior and my God!” (vs. 5-11 NLT).

Ah, what poetry! I will remember you, Lord. I remember you from ten-thousand-foot Mount Hermon, where You would be transfigured before three disciples, all the way to the surging, rolling Jordan River.

The words go beyond poetry. No, they rehearse and foreshadow difficult scenes not merely from the life of the psalmist but from the plight of our Lord, the King of kings and the Lily of the valley, He who endures more mocking and criticism than any man. Because of His omniscience, He is privy to far more of the evil thoughts of men than you or I could ever be. It must’ve been a burden like no other.

Then, next comes a song. Another stop. Elvis sings it, reinforcing in its lyrics the psalmist’s sentiments, especially in the resounding chorus—“My Jesus knows just what I need, O, yes, He knows just what I need. He satisfies, and every need supplies, yes, He knows just what I need.”

The songwriter, the famous Mosie Lister, understands that the power of the lyrics lies there in the middle of the chorus—“He satisfies, and every need supplies”! 

When the greatest singer of a generation comes to that part, and music takes him to the highest crescendo, like Mount Hermon itself, the distant scale is too high even for the Memphis singer to tiptoe to reach, so he relies instead on the brilliant backup lady singers to shake the crystal chandeliers.

“Oh yes,” we say, “oh, yes—He knows just what I need.”

And then, flipping the channel once again, our word-travel morning takes us from the greatest of spiritual poetry and most powerful gospel lyrics, somehow, to a classroom filled with students. A million of them have strolled through the doors, and the mind locks in on just a single group. It could be any of them, but it really is all of them.

I knew something they did not: Along the way in their lives, they would face unfair odds and challenges.

This.is.inevitable.

They have no idea, for the dreams of sixteen and seventeen-year-olds do not wander into far-reaching galaxies where the many glitches of life reside. That’s a good thing.

But they still need to fold a thought up and tuck it away safely for the day when they will need it. Thus, a poem always found its way onto their desks and into their lives. The story is of a boy playing left field; he and his team find themselves on the short end of a 42-0 score in the first inning.

The volunteer reader of the day reads the thirty-second text, and almost before the final words “I’ll side ain’t been to bat” have echoed off of the four well-inspired walls, comes the decades-long rhetorical question,

“Ladies and Gentleman” (that was always their cue that a long-held lesson was tittering on the horizon, a life-changing one if you are to believe the old fella who is in that exact moment utilizing one of a million dramatic pauses) … “Ladies and gentleman, tell me: what are you going to do when you look up at the scoreboard and see that you’re down 42-0?”

A pause.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we’ll find out tomorrow.”

A more dramatic pause than before.

“Hands together,” I said for the thousandth time, bringing the thought to its climatic conclusion; and, in unison—well-rehearsed and in sync—thirty pairs of hands come together.

(Part 2 next week)