"Do not conform to the
pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then
you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and
perfect will."
-Romans 12:2
After spending a week with a bunch (more than a hundred) of
Jesus lovers at a camp in the middle of nowhere (not really), learning more about
God and exploring my faith, I began to realize that there were certain things in
my life that were keeping me from advancing in my relationship with God. Over
the summer, I began to look at what was hindering my desire to draw closer to
Jesus. A big one was music. I spoke about this briefly in my “Am I Even a
Christian” post, but now I’d like to delve into the importance of feeding your
soul with what is good.
I grew up on pop music (think Kelly Clarkson, Avril Lavigne
and Justin Timberlake). As I grew older and learnt more about this world, I
developed a liking for rap music. In 2012, I began to listen to Kendrick Lamar.
Whenever I would listen to his album Good
Kid, M.A.A.D City, I felt like I could relate to his stories. Unlike him, I
didn’t grow up in a neighborhood with gun violence; I did, however, have a lot
of things to deal with as a teenager that I could never fully express. No one could
relate to my pain – or at least I thought. In my mid-teens (fifteen, sixteen),
I started listening to trap music (which is music that mostly talks about money,
drugs, sex and women). I didn’t listen to this music because I wanted to, I
listened to it because if I ever went to a party, I would be able to dance to
the music and sing along too. I wanted to fit in. Little did I know; this music
was stirring up something in me.
In my first year of college, I did the same thing. I tried
to keep up with the “party” music so that I could have a good time whenever
there was a party. I failed to realize that this music was corrupting my thoughts.
Think about the process of hearing. In layman terms, your ears pick up sound
waves and those travel to the brain. The brain then interprets the waves as sounds
and speech so that you can understand. Depending on how much attention you’re
paying to what you’re hearing and how often you hear it, your brain will store
the information. When I was listening to trap music, I didn’t know that my
brain would remember the information that I was hearing so much so that it
would affect my actions and thoughts.
But the fruit of the
Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.
-Galatians 5:22-23
The above verse is an illustration of what happens when you
live in the Spirit of God – you bear amazing, positive fruit. Listening to
music is one way in which we feed our souls. Every day, for the past week, I’ve
been listening to the album “All Things New” by a Christian indie band known as
Rivers & Robots. I know most of the
lyrics by heart and I’ve found myself not only singing the lyrics, but also
thinking about them frequently. I’ve begun to meditate on those lyrics and I’ve
found that I am always at peace when I think through them. When I think of trap
music, I don’t think of love or kindness or a positive message. I think of the
belittling of women and the idolatry of drugs, money and sex.
I am not here to tell you what you should and should not
listen to, but I am asking you to think about what you feed your soul. I listen
to rap music (Kendrick Lamar, Chance the Rapper, and J. Cole) because I find
that it has a positive message behind it. I relate to the pain in the artists’
stories and I feel encouraged after hearing about how they overcame challenges.
There is a lot of secular music out there that is encouraging and promotes
love. There is also a lot of secular music that does the exact opposite. The
enemy works through this kind of music to taint your views and to push you away
from God. If you are constantly listening to music that idolizes sex and money,
you will soon begin to do exactly that.
Finally, brethren,
whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just,
whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of
good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate
on these things.
-Philippians 4:8
Meditate on the things that bear the fruit of the Spirit,
not of the enemy. I can assure you, you can still have a great time at a party without
knowing any of the songs, let alone the lyrics to the songs! You don’t have to
listen to Christian music all the time, but I strongly encourage you to avoid
listening to music that glorifies the things of this world and exalts evil. If
this is an area where you struggle, turn to God. Tell Him that you are too weak
to overcome this and He will surely put good music in your path. I still listen
to rap because it doesn’t separate me from God. I gave up trap music because it
was taking the place of Jesus in my soul.
God truly loves you,
With love,
Mandile.
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