P.O. Box 53055    
Los Angeles, CA 90053   

LAST BUT NOT EASIEST #3

OH FOR A BIGGER HARD DRIVE

She has a friend named Lori, and the two girls like to hang out together. Lori and "Mud" – which is kind of an odd nickname. "Mud," who makes a good living as a pop singer and with some success in the movies, parties and does well for herself putting together recording deals. But Lori Jahns tells how there are times when her friend suddenly grows quiet. And then these hurting words from a lost-little-girl: "I miss my mom." And this multi-multi-millionaire, the hugely successful pop icon . . . is lonely for something that just isn't there. There's a silver frame on her antique night table, with a picture of Mom. Mom died, you see, when little Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone was just a six-year-old kid. And Madonna misses her mom.

We did a radio program once, "God's Christmas Card to Madonna," and found this quote from the Material Girl.

"It's a great feeling to be powerful. I've been striving for it all my life. I think that's just the quest of every human being – power."

Well, she has it. But all the power in the world can't bring back a mom who died of breast cancer. All the power in the world doesn't mean that you'll have a good marriage. All the power in the world doesn't mean that you won't have to call the Malibu Sheriff's Office and have them come rescue you because your husband, Sean Penn, physically assaulted you and beat you up.

That puts another face on it, doesn't it, when maybe you've watched one of those slinky music videos on MTV, "Justify My Love," and thought to yourself, "I wish I had 250 million dollars." Or imagined that huge, sold-out arena, with the electric zap! zap! zap! as all that mega-wattage of lights suddenly flooded right onto YOU, and you heard the wall of applause, the screams of teen approval for YOU. "I wish millions of concert-goers adored me," you thought. "I wish I was famous." And you felt the Tenth Commandment chewing at your conscience: "Thou shalt not covet the things that are thy neighbor's." But then you realize that there are things that Madonna wants too . . . and doesn't have.

There's a verse found in the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes, and I guess we could say this was written by the original Material BOY. Because King Solomon had a money belt and a sex life that makes Madonna look like the nun she once thought about becoming. He had three hundred wives and seven hundred girlfriends. You can read in the Hollywood Reporter – or actually in Ecclesiastes chapter three – about all the STUFF that Solomon had stashed away. But you also read the words, "Vanity, vanity, all is vanity." Or as the New International Version puts it:
"Meaningless! Meaningless! . . . Utterly meaningless. EVERYTHING is meaningless."

But now to chapter five, verse ten, where Solomon kind of wakes up following the post-Oscar party, and he says this:

"Whoever loves money NEVER has money enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income. This TOO is meaningless."

Maybe you recall an old film that's been on TV about a zillion times, called The Heartbreak Kid, starring Charles Grodin. The details are dusty by now, but he's a young bridegroom at the wedding. There's dancing and cake and streamers and an orchestra. And we see on his face a kind of look: Is this all there is? Speaking of zap! – shouldn't there be a bit more? Something's missing here.

He goes on his honeymoon with his pretty – but kind of ditzy – wife. She proceeds to get horribly, blotchy-faced sunburned, to the point where she's confined to the hotel room with green medicated face cream all over her. So he goes out on the beach by himself for a little while – where lo and behold, there's ANOTHER girl. Beautiful – actually, a lot more beautiful than the blotchy bride he's got back in room 925. This girl's blonde and chipper and flirty. She's got savoir faire and a style his WIFE (how OLD that word suddenly sounds!) will never have. Her bikini fits a lot better than MRS. Charles Grodin's does. And within three days, he's desperately thinking, "How can I get out of this stupid marriage, and ride off into the sunset with this blonde babe instead? THEN I'll be happy."

The upshot of the story is that he indeed breaks up with his wife, after just five days. They're still on their honeymoon when he tells her, "I want out." "What are you talking about, ‘I want out'?" And in desperation, he says, "Look, you can have everything. Take it all. Just let me out. Sign this paper." "Have everything? We're on our honeymoon! All we've got are these two suitcases!" But he divorces her and proceeds to start courting the pretty blonde.

And at the end of the celluloid story, he's at another wedding. Another tuxedo, another cake, another orchestra playing. And you know, the very same look crosses his face again. Déjà vu. "Is this it? Isn't there more? It's STILL eluding me. What am I missing? Where's the zap, the electricity, the never-ending jolt of perfect fulfillment?" He ain't got it, and in the end, the "heartbreak kid" has his own heart broken by the never-ending cycle of covetousness. Vanity, vanity, all is vanity.

In a cute kind of way, humorist Dave Berry observes how even in the world of computers, there's no end to the quest for fulfillment. A Reader's Digest excerpt from his book, Dave Berry in Cyberspace, describes his journey for more and ever more RAM.

"I've owned more than 20 computers," he writes. "I'm always on the lookout for a new one to replace my current one when it becomes obsolete, which usually happens before I can get it all the way out of the box. I have learned to use my computer as a productive tool in my everyday life, and you can too. We live in the computer age, and you need to get with the program."

Then, of course, you too will be part of this huge competition to see, as Berry puts it, who has the "biggest, studliest memory."

Well, friend, there's nothing humorous about the emotional treadmill many of us find ourselves on where there just is NO SUCH THING as perfection. We can't find it. We can't get to the end of the rainbow. In Dr. Ron Mehl's exceptional book, The Ten(der) Commandments, he writes:

"You see? Where does it stop? Once you start coveting, you're NEVER satisfied. Contentment slips out the back door of your life like an unloved child."

Well, I'm sure all of us would like to get off the treadmill. It's interesting that even in Bible times, people were chasing their neighbor's dreams. You can read in Luke chapter 12 where a man was very concerned about his brother hogging the family fortune. "Teacher," he complained, "tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me." Which is actually a fair request . . . although Jesus wasn't a licensed family litigator. And He says exactly that. "Who made Me a judge between the two of you?"

But now notice this next line. This is huge – and Christ directed this next warning not just to the man, not just to the crowd standing there that day, but to all of us who sometimes want to be the Material Men and Women of the new millennium. Here's verse 15:

"Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's LIFE does NOT consist in the abundance of his possessions."

And you know, friend, that is absolutely huge. Jesus tells us: "THAT is not LIFE! That there – your money, your inheritance, your things, your stuff, your toys, your achievements – THAT is not your life!" True, it's all right to have some of these things. But these THINGS are not what make up life, or the satisfaction of a good life.

We've borrowed a bit from Paul already, and he had his own experiences of both wealth and poverty. "I've lived both ways," he tells us. "I've been WITH it, and I've been WITHOUT it." And he finally learned to be content no matter what. But then he writes seven of the most telling, most necessary words in the world.

"For to me, to LIVE is CHRIST."

And you know, we want to go THERE, and just STAY there, for the rest of this series. What's the answer to covetousness? Jesus. What's the answer to the treadmill? Jesus. Where should our identity be? Jesus. What should our lifelong goal be? Jesus. You can attack this Tenth Commandment from a hundred directions, and JESUS is the solution every single time.

Back in our Christmas Card radio program addressed to Madonna, we noted that as a teenager, she had a high school boyfriend named Nick. Nick Twomey. He was an athlete, she was a cheerleader. It was pretty serious between them – some major-league flirting. Then he became a Christian. She went on to be the multi-millionaire Material Girl, chasing her dreams her way, singing in Evita: "You must love me." Nick became a Christian preacher, the pastor of Faith Reformed Church in Traverse City, Michigan. And one of the tawdry, three-dollar, unauthorized biographies about Madonna actually has a redemptive quote from this born-again Christian preacher who has discovered Jesus Christ as the answer to all life's endeavors and foot-races.

"My life zigged, her life zagged," he says quietly today. "I've thought about Madonna and I remember how she was. She was often confused. I wonder if she is happy. I suspect that underneath all the fame and fortune is a person in need of love, forgiveness, and hope."

And . . . Jesus. What she needs most . . . is Jesus. We all do.