Day 3

Welcome Back! (I think this is going to be my intro from now on)

This is day 3 in my journey to listen to only Christian music for 30 days, and if you are curious about why I am doing this challenge, or what I am trying to get out of it, then I suggest you check out my first blog post. And if you are trying to figure out just how I am going to make it through an entire month of listening to just one type of music, then I suggest that you read my second blog post, because you will learn that there are LOTS of options when it comes to listening to Christian Music. Anyways, let’s get into today’s topic.

For those of you who have been keeping up with the times, you would know that today is a Sunday. So I don’t think it would surprise anyone when I tell you that I was fully expecting to go to church this morning and hear something in a song that stuck out to me. I basically already his this post planned out, all I needed was to hear the song. So I got up, got my breakfast (Casey’s breakfast, and if you know me, you know that means it’s going to be a good day), went to church, and found a seat for worship. But as worship started to go along, something funny happened to me. I didn’t feel it. I didn’t feel any of the songs stick out to me. Now don’t get me wrong, I loved all the songs we played, and they have all stuck out to me at one time or another, but nothing was sticking out to me TODAY. This continued on throughout the service until we got to the last song, and I realized that nothing hit me. So I started to worry a bit, and on my way home from church I began to scan all the Christian stations I could think of in search of a song. However, it was the same story here as it was in church. I heard a lot of great songs, but nothing that stuck out to me. The closest call I found was with More than Anything by Natalie Grant, but that was more of me trying to force the feeling than just letting it happen. Nonetheless, I told myself that would be the song I write about today, and I moved on. However, God had a different plan in mind.

It’s funny how God works like that sometimes. It happened when I was cooking dinner and cleaning my kitchen. I knew it the second that it came on as well, I had finally found the song I wanted to talk about. That’s usually how it goes to. You find God’s will when you aren’t really looking for it, and I believe that is because YOU don’t find God’s will, HE reveals it to you at just the right time. And the song that God chose to speak to me through came on just when I was least expecting it.

The song is called “Idols” by Jessa Anderson and it is one of those songs that stirs me every time I hear it. As you might guess, the song is about the idols in our lives that keep us away from God, and Jessa does a beautiful job of mixing a catchy tune with some top notch writing. The lyrics of this song convict me, while at the same time uplifting me. It’s a strange combination of emotions that I know can’t come solely from human creation. From the opening lines of the song, Jessa paints a picture of how she feels like a bird in flight that is trying to build it’s home. The bird collects anything that it think might help, but it keeps getting drawn to all the shiny things around it. Eventually, the bird’s house is beautiful, but then the winter comes, and the bird flies away, leaving all of it’s material things behind. I find this metaphor to be a beautiful illustration of how we all feel at times, but me especially. I often get caught up in trying to collect material things, (or sometimes things that aren’t even material things, i.e. video game rewards) only to either grow tired of them or abandon them entirely.

The song continues in it’s stirring writing when it gets to the main chorus, and this is where I feel the most convicted, by speaking about how sometimes it feels like “this fickle heart in my chest, sometimes it beats for everything but what is best.” When I first heard that, I was like “Dang… Ain’t that right!” But then the chorus continues by striking an uplifting tone by saying “And when I turn down this voice I hear in my head, I give you room to speak, and offer life instead.” This is something that I do not too enough, and that is turning down the voice in my head and letting go speak. I have struggled with that for a long time, and it is something that I am trying to be able to do. But then right after saying that, Jessa talks about how the idols in our lives are the things that are keeping us from getting to that place, and she says “Take all of these idols, and lay them to rest”. This is the place that I need to get to with my relationship with God. I need to give him all of my idols, so that he can lay them to rest.

But that is only a good thought without any action behind it, so I thought, I need to figure out exactly what the idols that I have in my life are first! And upon thinking that, there was one that stuck out to me most obviously, and that is my obsession with Madden. For those of you who know me, I love football. I believe that football is the greatest game ever made, and football can be a tool that not only betters people’s lives, but in some cases, saves them. I am a football coach right now because I know about the impacts that a football coach can have on a person. I am for lack of a better term, a football freak. And because of that, I love to play football video games. However, as much as a I would like it to be, Madden is not football. And it is because of this fact that I let it get me WAYYYY more upset than I should. Madden has been a big part of my life, for as long as I can remember. But this is going to be the last year that I play it, because I can see the negative affect that it has been having on me over the past few years. And to go with that, I am also going to try and stop playing this year’s madden ASAP, because I also can tell the impact that it has been having. This is a huge idol in my life, because I spend a lot of my time thinking about Madden, when I should be thinking about other things. This is the idol that I think that I need to give up to God first.

I truly hope that you go and listen to “Idols” by Jessa Anderson yourself, and see if it stirs you in the same way that it stirred me. It is amazing what God can use to show you, when you just let him. Thank you for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful day.