I'm always excited by conviction. Other people's and my own. It's funny how we can be teaching stuff and hearing stuff for so long, and everything you're hearing and saying you know is true, but then the holy spirit convicts you on that specific detail more than ever before.
I love music. I love poetry. I love the way sounds and concepts and images weave wonderful ideas. We fall in love with that phrase because it's witty, it's empowering, it's sums up what we hope for or explains eloquently the hurt we feel in a way that we never could have expressed otherwise.
We have songs for when we're depressed. The ones that keep up comfortably in that melancholic state. The ones that we know will lift our spirits and wash the sadness away.
We have songs that remind us of that person or that point in time. The song associated with that year in school, or that night and that good conversation.
You may be completely different to me. This may have never been your experince.
But as I think about these experiences they are shaped by the sounds and words I remember. The thing is those words and sounds are worldly. Those words and sounds that I remember shape me and my remberance of the events. And recently I started wondering if this way a problem.
Jesus is my Lord and Saviour. The scriptures are what is to shape my life and the framework to which I am to define my thinking and behaviour.
I was convicted recently that maybe my thinking is too influenced by the lyrics around me. The thing is I like them. I like the way they describe my experienes, my emotional state of being. Music's not an idol. But it is something that I enjoy. I could live with out it. But I'd prefer not to.
My thought is that I need to adjust my thinking. Enjoy the songs, enjoy the poetry but spend more time dwelling on the scriptures too.
What do you think?
I love music. I love poetry. I love the way sounds and concepts and images weave wonderful ideas. We fall in love with that phrase because it's witty, it's empowering, it's sums up what we hope for or explains eloquently the hurt we feel in a way that we never could have expressed otherwise.
We have songs for when we're depressed. The ones that keep up comfortably in that melancholic state. The ones that we know will lift our spirits and wash the sadness away.
We have songs that remind us of that person or that point in time. The song associated with that year in school, or that night and that good conversation.
You may be completely different to me. This may have never been your experince.
But as I think about these experiences they are shaped by the sounds and words I remember. The thing is those words and sounds are worldly. Those words and sounds that I remember shape me and my remberance of the events. And recently I started wondering if this way a problem.
Jesus is my Lord and Saviour. The scriptures are what is to shape my life and the framework to which I am to define my thinking and behaviour.
I was convicted recently that maybe my thinking is too influenced by the lyrics around me. The thing is I like them. I like the way they describe my experienes, my emotional state of being. Music's not an idol. But it is something that I enjoy. I could live with out it. But I'd prefer not to.
My thought is that I need to adjust my thinking. Enjoy the songs, enjoy the poetry but spend more time dwelling on the scriptures too.
What do you think?
posted by Lisa V at
3:51 pm
8 Comments:
songs/poetry and the scriptures aren't mutually exclusive.
listen to more songs/poems that reflect on the scriptures... some of the greatest poetry written has been written in response to the marvellous cross of Jesus.
reflect on how songs/poems of this world don't reflect truths of the scriptures...
BUT - if your arm is going to cause you to sin - cut if off!
By
Dave Miers, at 6:34 pm
this is such a hard one for those of us caught up in the beauty of song and lyric!!!
Sometimes non-christian lyrics (not dirty ones, just Jesus absent ones) can move you to real highs and lows - and if feels so good to let them!
must we cut ourselves off from that?
....I don't want to.
but perhaps when we step off the music 'bus' be it on a high or a low, we must always see out position in the light of Christ.
is that possible?
By
Craig Tubman, at 4:38 pm
I reckon I get pretty affected by movies. If I watch Robocop, for example, I'll spend the next few hours moving with jerky movements and making that robotic servo kind of noise: vvvrrrhhhh.
By
Ben, at 11:22 am
Hey Lisa,
I know exactly what you are talking about - im just the same, especialyl with good lyrics!
I dont think there is a reason to cut us off from that - there are a number of reasons not to in fact...and I think craig is right when he says that in getting lost in these we must still return to Christ (or probably never leave that position but listen and read and absorb in light of Christ - i do this with movies all the time - if it isnt clear what i mean by that though just ask me to clarify haha)
But i think you are on the money in the need to balance all that with reading of Scriptures! Enjoy the songs but not rely on them, rely on the word of God. Enjoy the songs but contemplate them with a mind of Christ rather than a child of this world...
hm, not always possible i know, but worth trying it anyway!?
By
Anonymous, at 7:36 am
hmmmm, i think i am not as into music and lyrics as you but its true that we can replace God's words with the voice of todays poets.
By
ang, at 8:11 am
NEW POST PLEASE!!!
By
ang, at 11:04 am
ooo, I have another thought.
That is reflecting on biblical realism. That is, the Bible describes the real experience of humankind.
so, Genesis 4-11 invites us to walk the destruction that the fall has caused, not to ignore it. But at the same time we are called to hope in the promise that God has given.
so....I listen to some songs that drop me way down....but that is not necessarily bad, for I am allowing myself to feel the realities of our fallen world.
It is only if this then obscures my view of the God promised hope we have as Christians that it becomes a problem.
By
Craig Tubman, at 2:57 pm
Sometimes music is the only thing that gets your mind off everything else.
By
randomness, at 11:54 am
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