<i>detrimental</i> to my joy in the gospel.
This is not because the words are bad. Most of the words are great:
the gospel to music.
It is not because the recording is bad. The recordings are good.
It is not because the tunes are bad. The tunes are in the main great.
And there is precisely the problem. This is what happens:
I buy a new album. The songs are new and exciting. Some of the gospel
truths are put in ways that are encouraging, inspiring and uplifting.
Some songs capture how I am feeling at various times.
However, the more I listen to the music the less I contemplate the
words and the more it becomes just the experience of listening to the
music. The music gives me a lift. I take this lift to be a gospel lift
since the words are gospel words. Indeed, it was a gospel lift at the
start. However, as the tunes become and more familiar the lift
decreases. And I find that what I thought was my joy is decreasing.
You see, the problem is that I will often have the music in the
background when doing other things. It creates an ambience. A mood. An
emotional state, which I have come to take to be the gospel state.
So, here is the shock. Quality (and it is good quality) gospel centred
music is detracting me from the gospel and so my joy in the Lord.
Rather than the truths setting my heart on fire and the music helping
me praise, the music has become the source of my joy. What a shallow
well it is.
So, I need to actually spend the time thoughtfully singing songs and
reflecting on them or not listen to them at all.
For three weeks now I have not listened to a Christian track. And my
joy in the Lord is greater than it has been for a while. I have
resisted the urge to put an album or track on. I need to train myself
to keep the gospel as the source and substance of my Christian life.
That is what needs to drive both my joy and my emotions.
But there is more. Such music is also breeding dissatisfaction with
singing at church. Our church music is not as polished as a CD (funny
that). It is a little rough around the edges. I mean, it is normal, not
played by semi-professional musicians. It is not studio produced or
have 2000 people singing along. And strangely enough, it does not have
the same impact as the volume turned up loud on my headphones with me
singing along loudly but quietly so that the family can't hear.
Consequently, the experience of church doesn't have the same emotional
lift. It is not "me and the Lord" in the same way. And there we have my
heart exposed. It has become about the form, the emotions, the lift.
Subtly church is now about me and my emotional experience, rather than
joining with my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ and rejoicing
with hearty (if out of tune) joy at all that God has done for us in the
Lord Jesus.
And who needs CD generated joy. Who indeed needs a music group, a sound
system or anything, if our delight is truly in the Lord. Though of
course it helps to have someone who can keep us in tune.