Usually I prefer the understated, reserved and contained approach to matters. Rather than look for a raucous laugh by a loud suggestion I prefer the power of the quip, just slip it in the middle of a regular sentence to elicit a wry chuckle to those who pick it up or that little groan by others who see the thing. Not for me gurning big for the big laugh unless I’m on big performance duties. I come from the class of the subtle wit and the dry humour (it’s all in me surname).
On coming across my wife there was a phrase she introduced into my hearing and that was of describing an act from an individual as being ‘extra’. This usually referred to one who choose to over-emphasise something, just go that step beyond the acceptable in making a point. This is often associated with those who are anti-dry, anti-subtle and anti-understated. It is usually not a ringing endorsement of the behaviour of someone. It is most frequently used as a rebuke to try and bring someone into line with that acceptable norm.
So for example your children under a certain age are ripe for being extra. You inform them that they will not be able to have some chocolate and they have a temper tantrum, stamping, crying, rolling on the ground and moaning about the greatest injustice they have ever come across. It is at this point that they are informed in stern terms by the adult who hasn’t succumbed to responding in kind, that they are behaving out of turn and ‘being extra’.
This also works on the other scale so that on receiving said piece of chocolate they go on and on thanking you for it and proudly parading it to others and informing others completely out of context of the achievement of the piece of chocolate. They will carry on to an annoying or irritable degree and their balloon must be deflated by the equally stern announcement that they should cut it out because they are ‘being extra’.
So we’re clear on the extra thing.
I was reading my Bible – cos it’s a good book after all – and I was reminded about the story of David and Michal. That’s right, not David and Abigail, or David and Bathsheba or even everyone’s favourite David and Abishag (check that one out for yourself). I’m referring to the first love of the Bible’s precursor to Casanova. When I say it was his first love, nothing is said beforehand of David’s romantic conquests. Fitting for a future king, David’s first love story is with the daughter of the reigning monarch, King Saul.
So we have them being set up after David rises to the extreme challenge that the Kind sets for him if he is to be married to her. The heroism showed by David for the love of this woman is reminiscent to a number of amorous and somewhat bloody deeds done for the love of a woman throughout the Old Testament. There’s no doubting that this guy will do what it takes for the hand of this woman in marriage. Not only that but the feeling is mutual for it is her attraction to the new kid on the block that gets Saul’s attention in the first place. We swoon, we sigh, we coo and all that other mushy stuff we’re meant to do at those chick flicks or rom-coms. (Although this is hardly Sleepless in Seattle. Thank God.)
This is in Saul’s bad years and as David rises in integrity, Saul descends into further mental tortures and anguish and David is the target for some lethal treatment. Here again the love between wife and husband saves the latter from certain death. Desperate to spare him, Michal risks the anger of her dad and certain separation from her husband for an extended period of time, by doing the old put-an-idol-under-the-sheets-with-some-goats’-hair-to-make-it-look-like-David-to-fool-the-guards … trick.
As David does his fugitive stint, Michal is married off to someone else, but it’s evident that her heart remains for her first love. After Saul’s eventual demise as David’s ascent to the throne continues unabated he demands the return of his wife as part of a deal with Ish-Bosheth the puppet leader in Saul’s stead. So we have that reunion and all appears to be going well … until David only goes ahead and gets accused of ‘being extra’.
It’s in 2 Samuel 6:11-23 if you want to read it for yourself but the CD synopsis is as follows. David in true rags to riches style has reached the summit of his run to the throne. He’s defeated virtually all round him and now he gets to return the ark of the Lord to where it belongs. This is a big deal in David’s life – the shepherd boy despised by his brothers and not given much of a chance in his society has been taken on a whirlwind of the Lord through Goliath, persecution and the life of a fugitive to be crowned the Prince of God’s People. God and God alone has done this amazing thing in his life.
You can imagine it exceeded what he was looking at as a life career.
Career Advisor: So David what do you want to be when you grow up?
David: King of Israel, like Saul …
(Both the advisor and David fall about laughing)
Career Advisor: Seriously, though …
David: Yeah, I think a shepherd will do me … I might want to go on Israel’s Got Talent, I’ve got a couple of numbers here that I think Simeon Cowell might go for
Career Advisor: Well that singing stuff will never work, lyres are out and who’ll ever get into these psalms? As for the shepherding bit, great stuff, here’s a brochure for your dad’s pastures, knock yourself out …
All that to say that you can imagine that David is rather grateful to God for taking this no one to be someone and so as the ark is presented David goes OTT in the procession – I mean this is really something you’re rarely going to see if ever by anyone in the praise march to sacrifices. It’s odd to see anyone dancing themselves so crazily out of their clothes. For that to be a king, though, was quite extraordinary. You can’t see Prince Charles doing something like that now! (I don’t want to put that image there for you either, but it’s too late.)
Michal’s response to it is rather telling though. It’s as if she cannot connect in anyway with what David is doing and harbours some nasty stuff towards this brother’s extravagant gratitude. So she is rightfully put in her place when she dares take it up with her husband. David lets rip on her that no love for a woman should ever outdo the love for the Lord who makes something out of nothing, who can take a nobody and make them a somebody all by Himself in the most amazing of ways.
When I consider David’s actions I can somewhat understand how it can be related in that way as him ‘being extra’. Yet when I think of all that God has done for me in the light of recent circumstances and the greater picture of my brief sojourn on planet then that in the bigger picture of this wonderful Godly narrative of redemption, reconciliation and restoration the term ‘being extra’ doesn’t seem so bad at all.
Whether it’s the taxi companies, people sending fruit and veg, people looking after my children, people praying, people helping to move heavy goods from one end of the country to the other, people generously donating cash, people supporting me through conversation, people helping by giving radio projects, to me it is just a start to say thank you to them. To then know that they are all sent by God and work it out for my good in the light of trying times, to also know that it’s all being worked to conform my character to the image of Jesus for the glory of the Father …
Being extra is the beginning of the gratitude bit.
For His Name’s Sake
Shalom
dmcd
Life With CD 