You Do Who?

You Do Who?

As a guy who was born in the previous millennium, grew up with four channels on the TV, knows what life before the internet felt like and can easily begin a sentence with “Well, 25 years ago…” I have a confession to make.

The confession is this. I simply don’t understand some of the new vernacular that our students and even some of you younger parents use. Here are a few that I have been trained by my twenty-something children to understand but don’t use myself:

“Bougie”: I understood what bourgeoise meant, but not bougie. Bougie is a word that can be used either in a disparaging or admiring way when talking about something expensive or extravagant.

“TLDR”: An abbreviation for “Too Long Didn’t Read”. Apparently, this
abbreviation is now added to new dictionaries. I would love to add this
definition – “An abbreviation used by a person who is either too lazy or
disinterested to show the courtesy of actually reading a communication
sent by another.”

“Uber”: For months, I thought this was either a description of the online taxi service or short for the term “ubiquitous.” Wrong. This comes from the German word that means “denoting a supreme or excellent example of a particular kind of person or thing.” Now I just don’t know what to do with the people I hear say, “Super Uber!”

“You do you”: After an exhaustive 12-second google search of what the world wide web thinks of this phrase, I found that the understanding of “you do you” is an encouragement to simply “be yourself.” I’ve kind of taken this phrase to have a little bit of hidden jab that means something like, “Well, I wouldn’t do it that way, but if it makes you happy….”

Most of the time, phrases like these are harmless and unprovoking of much thought or action. In the case of “you do you”, I simply wanted to encourage us as believers in Jesus Christ to do just the opposite. The Bible is replete with examples that reject the notion that humans should follow their own thoughts, dreams, feelings or ideas. Our hearts, according to Jeremiah, are “deceitful” and “desperately wicked”. Isaiah tells us that our good deeds are “filthy rags” and that “each of us has gone astray and turned to our own wicked ways”. Paul tells us that there “are none who do good, not even one.”

I believe that Jeremiah, Isaiah and Paul would tell us that our personal choices make a positive difference only when we look to the person of Jesus Christ. When “I do me,” things go poorly because of all of the fears, failures, frailty and faults that I naturally possess. Hopefully, we can all follow the perfect example of Jesus, who said to His father, “not my will but yours be done”. I will close with the words of an old hymn as our encouragement to surrender to the Savior daily.

“Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in his wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of his glory and grace.”

Many blessings,
David Landis, Superintendent