It’s one week until our 25th wedding anniversary, so you should know about a longstanding joke between Matt and me. I’ll make some insightful comment about a person, and Matt will disagree. I’ll argue with him, because I argue. The disagreement escalates, until finally I bark at him, “Honey, which one of us knows people?”
Then we laugh, and he has won, because he always wins.
Matt has a master’s degree in psychology and is a licensed clinical professional counselor—that plus a few decades of counseling experience. He knows people.
So that brings me to the important event of last night, which was finally caving in and watching the viral Chewbacca Mask Lady video, which has had millions of hits. And we laughed just as hard as everybody else must have.
Then I thought like a blogger and wondered, What was it in that video that touched people so much?
Swing with me to one more place—my Spanish classroom. Let me introduce you to sixth period, which is full of generally reserved students who feel like they’ve been tipped back in a dentist’s chair if I ask them to sing in class. Then there is seventh period, which is generally full of not reserved students. I’ve been teaching seventh period the same Spanish song that I’ve been teaching to my sixth period class, except seventh period belted it out with gusto yesterday, while dancing in their chairs. They begged me to play it again, and I wished I had taught them more music all year.
But who knew? Who knew that music would be the thing for that group? Who knew that a woman in a Chewbacca mask could touch the hearts of millions of people?
In John 2:25, we read this simple truth about Jesus:
He knew what was in a man.
Jesus knew people enough to know when to speak to them and when to be quiet, when to engage in conversation and when to slip away, when to trust and when to guard Himself. He knew the responses that would shut up His adversaries. He knew the questions that would touch the greatest needs of broken souls.
Even Matt, a professional counselor and a great judge of people, does not know the inner man the way Jesus does. The human heart is hidden and complex, so it makes sense when we just don’t get somebody.
This has to bring us to a great confession of dependency on Jesus in every relationship. He’s the only one who really knows my students. He’s the only one who fully understands my husband, my kids and my friends.
So I pray for us:
Lord, give us insight into our people. Help us see where they hurt and what they need. Give us a perspective that we cannot have on our own, and help us relate to our people in a meaningful way. In the name of Jesus, amen.
