What is music? It’s something that we all know draws us all together at concerts, special events and we all have our different ways of expressing our love for music, our different bands that we love, and those artists that regardless off the quality of the song that they release, we will always love them.
While I mentioned this in my Introduction Blog, I realised how much I have changed from 8 years ago when music was my life. This was during a time that all I did was: ‘Eat, listen to music, sleep and repeat’. And, yes, I know some of you must be saying, “what’s the problem with that?” or “that is me as we speak”. Being where I am today, I know that there is so much more to life than those 3 things that had me tied to a bad belief.
During that period of not wanting to live for anything to now, using every second that I have for a purpose. I realised how important it is to not just ‘live young, you only die once’ but it’s …
Make Every Moment Count.
– Dr. Marjorie Fullerton (Principal of Merl Grove High School)
Music sucked me in. It became a runaway hole for me. And, that is good. Music is an escape. It helped a lot of people get out of being depressed or feeling alone.
That wasn’t it for me. It fueled my rebellion. It encouraged me bottling my emotions all up inside and it made me, “not want to live”.
I know a lot of persons say that music is therapeutic and it heals and it cures… But it doesn’t always. It was something that was the altar in my life that was higher than God. It made me want to not believe in Him just out of anger of where I was and where I wasn’t.
If someone was to ask me “What is one thing that you find you take pleasure in doing when you’re drifting away in your commitment or relationship with God?” I would have to say listening to music I used to before I was a fully committed Christian. Let me explain why.
When you are in a state of feeling less spiritually connected, your fleshly desires sounds louder and more important than the spiritual desire to be close with God. So because I all of a sudden still have this jar to be filled (my desires) I need to find a source when I’m not connected to God. For me, that is music.
I also realise that there is this deep guilt that I feel from doing this because it is like I detox and fasted from this very thing for maybe a year or two and then now I’m reintroducing this to my body and it’s like fighting foreign bodies. It became so used to not having that it had to attend orientation again. Loool.
I also begin to feel these heavy tugs on my spiritual man like a million bricks on me (not talking mula now). I feel so weighed down that I have to stop. Sometimes I get so deep into my old music that I’m like… “I am about to trip out”. I feel like I’m going to be soo far from Christ you know? And sometimes I wonder why we are so selfish. We mentally think about how this makes God feel and sometimes in our minds we are like, “He will forgive us”. At this point you’re even toxic to God. (Not that that can actually be like… but you get what I mean. You’re treating the relationship in a manner that you’re acting toxic but God not really… yahhh). I am going to talk more about how we treat God in another blog but yall need some time before I start exposing these selfish traits. No cap.
But yeah. This has been my experience with music that isn’t in any way pleasing to the Lord and so I stay away from it. There are days that I do so in a way that it’s like in the name of “2010 was a good year” or “nostalgia”. But I have been training myself (yes because as Christians we should be disciplined) to not use things like this to only grant me pleasure in small moments like this. Sometimes your past should really stay there.
This is sooo not to say that I don’t jam to music anymore. I’m not as musically inclined as I used to be and that can be good or bad, but I also have so much more to do now that I know that if I am listening to music it’s not because I am hiding away from my gifts and talents and it isn’t because I am trying to feed my fleshly desires.
I definitely will do a blog post on the music I listen to now, my honest views on Christian music today and what I think can or should be done about alot of these things in the Christian music industry.
I do urge you guys though, (because I say this to my friends all the time) listen to music you relate to because that’s what music is. *attempts to find another good quote*
“Music is the literature of the heart; it commences where speech ends.”
– Alphonse de Lamartine
For the most part that is the reason that so many listen to music; they connect and relate to it. It also is a reason I suggest a song at the end of my posts. It most times is unrelated to my blog but I share because one of the best gifts you can give to someone is music that changes their life and understanding of it in a better way.
So with that said, listen to music that you can relate to. Buttt. Yes I just stopped you in your own tracks kidd. Do not listen to music that facilitates or feeds a negative energy. Like… that is not healthy for anyone. I dont care how ” not phased” or “non-emotionally inclined” you are. That is not good for your spirit. I am so not saying listen to hymns and people you don’t like but listening to depressing music when you feel depressed doesn’t get you out of that state. And please, people out here really getting diagnosed with these things and for you to just be attaching these things to your personality or your life, is not spiritually doing you any good. But let me not get too deep with that cause yall ain’t ready.
If your intention is to come out of a place, you cannot use the same thing that got you there. I am Ruth-Ann Briscoe and I approve this message.
I do hope that you are keeping safe and to those that are actually diagnosed as clinically depressed etc. my heart is with you. I know people who are and I so hope that the way the world is going now with this whole depression being a trend doesn’t offend you or make people take you less seriously.
(This sound like it can use a part 2 what you think though? I barely went in on you guys).
~🇯🇲 The CreatOR creatED a creatIVE – Queen Ruthie 🇯🇲~
Ruth Writes Co Blog 