Last night, God answered a prayer of mine in a huge way as it related to my music. I have been adding a whole ton of Christian music to my iPod recently and the more of it I listen to, the more it “fills me up” and motivates me to relentlessly pursue God. Even as I’m walking across the quad between two classes only five minutes apart, I hear “My Savior Lives”, and it’s impossible not to sit in my next class with a quiet sense of peace.
I’d been wondering for a few months how much more effective I would be in listening to God’s heart and advancing His kingdom if this was the only type of music I listened to.
I often fall victim to the worldly illusion that there are three types of music: that which is helps me as a Christian (think Kari Jobe or Chris Tomlin), that which hurts me as a Christian (think Lil Wayne or my old favorite band, Green Day), and that which makes me stay the same. Though it’s unpopular to say this in today’s world, where it’s hip to reside in a gray shade of relativistic uncertainty, the truth, the biblical truth, is that there is no gray area. Some music fills me up and some music hurts me. There is nothing in the middle. A song doesn’t have to talk about strippers and cocaine for it to hurt me. Any song that weakens my resolve and slows down my attempt to sprint towards Christ hurts me.
Faith Hill tells me “the secret of life is a good cup of coffee”. Maybe I was under the false impression that the secret of life was to find that life in Jesus Christ’s beautiful sacrifice and spend the rest of my life joyously responding appropriately to He who gave me life. I don't need Sara Bareilles to write me a love song. My love song was sung from a cross and the lyrics say, "it is finished." Like a G6, like a G6? Give me a Cessna and let me fly to our brothers in Northport who still sleep on park-benches and beg for change.
Many of you are probably thinking I’m crazy right now. I’m “one of those extreme Christians” or one of those “overboard” Christians. I assure you, you are absolutely correct. Though I don’t seek these labels, I find incredible joy in them, because they let me know I’m on the right track. To avoid these terms would be to seek worldly acceptance. Worldly acceptance isn’t something to be attained by “socially-savvy” Christians, it’s something to be rejected and feared. Luke 6:26 says, “Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets.” Luke isn’t saying “If men don’t speak well of you it’s not that bad because at least you have God to be your friend”, he’s saying “Something is gravely wrong when all men speak well of you.”
That being said, God really responded to my prayer about music and laid it on my heart hot and heavy what needed to be done. So, last night I read the story of Noah’s Ark in Genesis chapters 6-9 and deleted every non-Christian song I had on my iPod.
There are great similarities between the music on my iPod and the story of Noah’s ark. First, music is not inherently bad. It’s inherently good. God gave us the gift of music to aid us in worship. Many of the Psalms say “For the director of Music” before they start, as if to combine the word of God with musical instruments. Though music is not inherently bad, it has gone wrong.
In the same way, after God created the animals in Genesis 1:20-21, He “saw that it was good” (Genesis 1:21), yet by the time we get to Genesis 6, we see that God’s creation was totally corrupted (Genesis 6:11). God instructed Noah in Genesis 7:1-4 to save two of every animal, and put them on an Ark while he flooded the rest of the world. Noah, as strange as this command may have sounded, was obedient. Then, what God did next, was both swift and miraculous. He brought his full wrath on the earth and annihilated every living creature (Genesis 7:21). He didn’t slowly dwindle them down over a period of 1,000 years. He just annihilated them.
I tried pursue God’s actions as much as I could in how I dealt with the deleting of my music. I made a playlist called “Saved”, and though I meant saved as in “non-deleted”, I quickly realized the double-meaning. I loaded every Christian song I had, every Christian audiobook, and a select few podcasts onto that playlist, then deleted every single other file.
You might say the Apostle Paul tells us to “become all things to all people” (1 Corinthians 9:22) and to live in the world, but this verse had been twisted again and again. Paul was talking about shaping the delivery of his Gospel for each people group in order to better reach them. It was a ministry tool, not an excuse to slack off. If I am in a restaurant, at a party, or with friends, of course I’m going to be listening to worldly music! I refuse, however, to use this verse as justification to dump garbage in my ears, when 90% of the time the music I listen to is only for me, as I am wearing headphones.
Before I clicked delete, iTunes gave me an option to keep the files I had purchased through the iTunes music store. It would delete them but let me download them again for free if I ever wanted them. I just about clicked “keep files” when I remembered a verse spoken by David. David said, in 1 Chronicles 21:24, “No, I insist on paying the full price. Iwill not take for the LORD what is yours, or sacrifice a burnt offering that costs me nothing.” It’s not that I refused to keep them to prevent myself from re-downloading them. I simply felt like it was about time I sent up an offering that was really worth something.
And finally, just as the animals that were on the ark came out and multiplied, re-populating the earth after the flood , I fully expecting my music library (which is now 145 songs total) to multiply in the same way. Through iTunes, youtube, and Pandora, I believe my music will “go forth and multiply” into a library that is pleasing to God.
