It's Only Make Believe

On my way to the office today, driving the car I rarely use, the radio was tuned to a classic country music station.  The song playing as I pulled out of the drive was Conway Twitty’s - It‘s Only Make Believe.   I admit, I’ve always loved that song, for whatever reason.  His voice was so, so strong early in his career but then in his later years, (in my humble opinion) he started to sound more like Elmer Fudd.  Listen to him sing the song The Rose from 1992 and see if you don’t agree.  It cracks me up every time I hear Elmer Fudd singing; Da Wose - Some say wuv, it is a wiver……enough about that though, that’s just me talking crazy.

One of the most intriguing tidbits about the song; It’s Only Make Believe (written by Conway Twitty and Jack Nance) is that for eight long weeks after its release in July of 1958 it virtually sold NO records whatsoever.  The record producers simply could not believe it.  Here was this (what they thought to be) mega hit record, by this very popular singer, getting lots of airplay - yet no one was buying the album or single – what gives?  Finally someone at MGM Records had the great idea to begin surveying the record shops to see if that would help solve the mystery.  What they learned truly surprised them.  Sure there were lots of requests to buy the record from the public but, nearly everyone thought the song was sung by the hottest thing in music at the time, Elvis Presley.   Customers came in daily asking for that record by Ol’ Shake-a-Leg himself, but the clerks kept telling them they didn't have it yet, so they left empty handed or with some other really cool Elvis record.

As I said, this went on for two whole months during what was the busiest time of the record selling season back then, yet all the while, It’s Only Make Believe  quickly became the most requested song on radio.  MGM executives took action and immediately sent word to all stations to over-emphasize that it was sung by Conway Twitty, not Elvis - and the rest is history as they say.  By November of that year it became the first, and only # 1 Hit Conway ever had on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-e2MUH3rBw

It’s only make believe

Sometimes it feels like we live in a world of make believe, doesn’t it?  Everything today seems so “surreal” as it’s often described in today’s most over-used phrase EVER.

Making believe – as if we were mere children playing a game on the front porch or in the back yard after we got bored with other stuff, during what used to be three long months of summer vacation from school.   We could make believe we were anybody, doing anything, on any type of adventure we wanted to.   Our imagination was our video games back then - we didn't sit on the couch with a controller in our hands killing aliens like nobody’s business – NOPE, we were outside hanging from a tree limb or hiding under a makeshift tent from the sheets on the clothes line. We didn't have much, but by golly we could make believe with the best of them because our imaginations were exercised to full strength every day.    Do you ever wish you could go back to those days……yeah me too sometimes.

An interesting thing I read Billy Graham say in an interview once; he speculated that only about 25% of the people who came forward in his crusades over the years actually sincerely committed their lives to Christ. Despite there being lots of REALITY in what he said, it’s still a very sad statistic, as well as being a sad statement of how we love to play make believe.  Today’s study (actually done in 2012)show an even gloomier view of this issue – only 6% of people that come forth or represent they have made a commitment to God at a crusade or religious event show any signs of significant change in their lives one year later.  Again, this is so very sad!    But here’s the up-side to all this – even if only 6% of the people that came to a Billy Graham crusade were “transformed” that is still approximately 12 million people.   12,000,000 people that may have never given their lives to Christ if the Good News had not been preached to them by this common man from the dairy farms of North Carolina, doing something in a very uncommon-like way.

So what’s all this telling us?   Simply this; we’ve become very good at making believe, but more importantly it shows in our minds and hearts we recognize we need something more than what we’ve been pretending to already have.   We professional pretenders know the real truth - all the while we’re making believe we have everything under control, we’re really nothing but a big, hot mess of goo on the inside.

You've heard me say this before; I pretended for 19 years to be an Agnostic but the truth is, I was never really an Agnostic. First and foremost; I merely had questions which I was seeking answers to it.  Secondly; my life didn’t line up with the way I knew in my heart God wanted me to live, so rather than submit myself to His authority as Lord over my life I made believe I didn't know if He existed or not.   I got so good at it I could argue both sides of the issue with believers as well as the so-called Atheist crowd, yet, as that period of make believe in my life began to wind down it became harder for me to deny the truth that my heart had always known to be real.  

Interesting fact:  Even while professing to be an Agnostic I was invited to be a special teacher for a month-long series to a young-adult group at a Baptist Church in East Tennessee.  Now, isn’t that strange!  They didn't offer me this opportunity because I was pretending to be something else, as I went around openly declaring to be an Agnostic.  What actually got me the invite was my strong belief that regardless what you do, or believe in, do it or believe it with great passion - or simply don’t do it at all.  This, I could teach because I truly believed it - it wasn't make believe for me, it was a core principle in my life!

What happened in the process was this: Over that four week period God started showing me the ridiculous pretentiousness in my stance to be a so-called Agnostic, as well as pointing out the other wrong thinking and doings in my life.  So what ended up happening was this - He reached down and rescued me from myself!  I'll never forget lying in the floor of the sun-room (which I had built onto the camper I lived in at the time) on a cold December 5, 2006 night, balling my eyes out in repentance.  God forgave me, and welcomed another prodigal son back home, even while the smell of fresh pig’s slop was still on my breath.

What helped get me to that point was this; one of the leaders from that young adult group gave me a CD by a Christian group I had never heard of at the time called, Casting Crowns.  The song from their Lifesong album that broke the will of this self-proclaimed Agnostic was one entitled; Stained Glass Masquerade. The lyrics seemed to jump out of the CD player and grab me by the throat and wouldn't let go till I submitted.  I was no longer given the option to make believe as it was a point where I believe God said; we’re going to settle this issue once and for all - and we did!   I've never looked back, not once, for how could I – my life had been saved. I HAVE BEEN RESCUED!

Is there anyone that fails?
Is there anyone that falls?
Am I the only one in church today
Feelin' so small?

'Cause when I take a look around
Everybody seems so strong
I know they'll soon discover
That I don't belong

So I tuck it all away, like every thing's okay
If I make them all believe it, maybe I'll believe it too
So, with a painted grin, I play the part again
So, everyone will see me the way that I see them

Are we happy plastic people
under shiny plastic steeples
with walls around our weakness
and smiles to hide our pain?

But if the invitation's open
to every heart that has been broken
maybe then we close the curtain
on our stained glass masquerade

Is there anyone who's been there?
are there any hands to raise?
Am I the only one who's traded
in the altar for a stage?

The performance is convincing
and we know every line by heart
only when no one is watching
can we really fall apart

But would it set me free
if I dared to let you see
the truth behind the person
that you imagine me to be?

Would your arms be open?
Or would you walk away?
Would the love of Jesus
be enough to make you stay?

Songwriter: HALL, JOHN MARK       Published by: Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzKOrlPuWzo

1 Corinthians 13

1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing. 4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres. 8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child; I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. 12 Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. 13.  And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

I believe when we truly “get” what God is telling us in these scriptures we can no longer go on living in a world of make believe just as I couldn't after December 5, 2006. This I now know, we must submit our will, our hearts, and our complete lives, to serve and to love Him and others - right here, right now in this very REAL world we live in.

 It’s only make believe, 

but the Good News is, it doesn't have to be!

“But would it set me free
if I dared to let you see
the truth behind the person
that you imagine me to be?”  

                                                                                                                  doug