Do you remember 1977 and The Brothers Gibb? The Bee Gees' U.S. Top Forty chart domination began in 1977. "Stayin' Alive" was the then number one hit and a major song for the movie Saturday Night Fever. It was then replaced in 1978, with the group's younger brother Andy Gibb's single, "Love Is Thicker Than Water", followed by the Bee Gees' own "Night Fever". This was then replaced by Yvonne Elliman's "If I Can't Have You". Since Barry Gibb had a hand in writing all four of these songs, he became the only person in history to write four consecutive US Number One singles; this feat has not been matched to this day. Robin Gibb was quoted as saying, "Stayin' Alive" is about survival in the big city—any big city—but basically New York."
I have been humming the refrain to "Staying Alive" for the last two three weeks. I'll probably be humming it until Christmas. I'm a little over booked in terms of committments and overwhelmed at the present. So right now, I am trying to stay alive and keep my heart and mind focused on Christ while being pulled in many directions. Both of my grown and living at home college student children became very ill these past couple of weeks so there was a flurry of medical activity and extra care. It was like being beseiged when we discovered that their illness was a class 1 communicable disease and the county health department was called in.
I was reflecting on the actions of the prophet Jeremiah who, while his city was besieged, bought some real estate, as an outward prophetic expression of hope. The Lord said to him, " Jeremiah, when you brought the field, you showed that fields will someday be bought and sold again. You say that this land has been conquered by the Babylonians and has become a desert, emptied of people and animals. But someday, people will again spend their silver to buy fields everywhere---It will happen because I will give this land back to my people. I, the Lord, have spoken.
Sometimes I am just staying alive, and that is the best I can do under the circumstances, until the season is passed. God knows that I am an experiential learner. I learn best by doing,experiencing, not by reading books. I have to live through overcommittment and fully rely on God rather than reading about it. For those of you who can learn from reading about the mistakes of others, I post this piece. God is good all the time.
