Hank Williams Jr. and Kid Rock are best of friends. I like that. A kid from Detroit City and a country boy from Alabama - best buddies. And brought together by music! Reminds me of my Tuesday podcasts on Galatians and its teaching that, through Jesus, a world of people with all kinds of different backgrounds can come together as more than friends; they can come together as family.
So, I figured that since I did a Kid Rock song last week, I’d do a Hank Williams Jr. song this week.
I know, I know, Hank Williams’s songs aren’t exactly standard rock ’n roll fare. But if you are a rock ’n roll aficionado, like me, you know that country music has had a powerful influence on rock ’n roll, and vice versa. Just last night, I watched a Youtube video of Keith Richards and Willie Nelson singing “We Had It All.”
Anyway, I love Hank’s song, “A Country Boy Can Survive.” From the coal mines of West Virginia to the Rocky Mountains and western skies, country boys, good ole boys can be found all over this country in which I live. They can skin bucks (been there, done that), they can run trout lines (that too). Country boys can survive.
To be honest, I’m a city boy. My mother’s family, however, were farmers, and I spent a lot of time hunting and fishing on my uncle’s farm.
I was a bouncer in a country and western bar one summer during college. This was in the 1980s when country music was popular. (It still is, but back then, it seemed to attract people you wouldn’t normally think of as country music lovers.)
Anyway, the bar was called Hemmingway’s (strange, I know), and we had a mixed group of clientele evenly divided between college students and local red necks. Which, by the way, is one of the reasons a bouncer was needed!
I got the job through a friend of mine who was a martial arts fighter. I was a boxer, so I was guaranteed $20 a night to maintain order. And that’s where I grew to appreciate country music. Up until that time, I wasn’t a fan. I’m still more of a rock ’n roll guy, but I do love the guitar in a lot of country music. We had a great band that played most nights, and I actually went to see them in downtown Manhattan that summer.
What I love about A Country Boy Can Survive is how God uses this song to remind me of the importance of simplicity. Did you know that simplicity is one of the spiritual disciplines of the Christian life? And I might add, one that is sorely needed in our day of, I’m just going to say it, gluttony, which, by the way, is more than just eating too much.
The Scriptures tell us that godliness with contentment is great gain. That’s another way of saying that we don’t need tons of stuff to be happy. Not the latest SUV or truck with all the bells and whistles. Not the most recent i-phone with the impressive focusing apparatus. Not the biggest house, the fanciest restaurants, and vacations. Personally, it took me a while to learn this. It helped when we left a 3500 square foot home in North Atlanta and moved into a 1000 square foot apartment in Seoul!
Your life and mine, they aren’t about the abundance of things. The simple things are where life is found, where life explodes in all its fulness and joy. Walks on the beach, hikes through the woods, sunsets, grilling hamburgers with family and friends. This is the stuff of life!
As Christians, we are called by God to do more than survive; we are called to thrive. The simple life, whether it is in the city or the country, is the best life.
In Christ,
Dan
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