The Thanksgiving Challenge
Good Morning Girls! The Thanksgiving Challenge......oh here we go.....here comes another diet. No. I am not starting a new weight loss challenge. And I am not already thinking about the next Turkey Day. I am responding to one of the things Pastor Jim encouraged us to do at this weekends church service.
He was sharing with us different ways to draw near to God (and He will draw near to you). He gave us many different things to try. I decided Sunday morning to try one of them. Well, actually it was two things tied together. One thing was to ditch the secular music that was on my i-pod. The second was to spend my prayer time and my day giving thanks for everything I could think of. Pastor Jim encouraged us to spend two days doing nothing but giving thanks. Sounded easy enough. I do have a lot to be thankful for! So, I decided to implement these two things in my morning run.
I would like to say a couple things about the secular music. There are songs that I used to listen to in the 80's and 90's that definitely bring me down to a "remember when" video flashback. A song will bring me to a moment so specific that I can tell you exactly where I was, what I was doing, what I was wearing and who else was there. I can almost taste the specific drink I had at that moment. Depending on the memory, I have caught myself smiling, or getting teary eyed and feeling sick to my stomach. I learned years ago that I cannot listen to the music of my past. I turned away from it long ago.
Today's music doesn't have that same effect on me. There are no memories that tie me to the music. However, now that I am a new creature, and I have the Holy Spirit living inside of me, I have found my taste has changed. I listen to Christian music 90% of the time. Every once in a while I flip through the channels. Sometimes I will come across a song I like. However, if there are negative words, or things mentioned that are contrary to my beliefs, my spirit is quick to respond and say "no thanks!"
So why do I have secular music on my i-pod? Bottom line is I am lazy. I bought my i-pod from my 16 year old niece 2 years ago. I have never downloaded anything into it. I don't even have the cord to hook it up to my computer. I simply bring it to her house and her entire playlist gets downloaded to my i-pod. She added a few Christian songs to her playlists for me, but not enough to get me through a workout. So, I have been listening to teeny bopper music off and on for 2 years. (one year I had my nephews music downloaded which was better. He is in college and had a much larger Christian and non Britney like selections). I admit I like the beat of a lot of the teeny bopper music. It is great to run to. However, the lyrics are unbelievably awful! I have learned which ones to skip completely and found a few that surprising have no mention of alcohol, murder, jealousy, revenge, sex, or anything else you find in the Old Testament dramas (but without the glory of God and life lessons!) So, I figured as long as I just listened to the "ok" ones, It was ok. Lately however I have been feeling the nudge of "this is not okay". Especially because I believe the Lord has put running in my heart. So why would I listen to anything other than music that glorified Him as I run? I know, it seems like no brainer. And it is......but have you ever tried running without music? It is not fun! But Saturday night at church I was fully convicted. So the music has got to go. The cool thing is that now that I have been going to the 5th service more I realize there is awesome music out there....with rhythms that will get my legs running at warped speed.....all to the glory of him!
So, now I am out of time and I haven't even really talked about the challenge. Oh well, maybe one of you have been sitting on the secular music fence and this was for you. I will pick up where we left off tomorrow........
By the way....... If any of you have an awesome playlist on your i-pod, I would love to plug mine in to yours. It doesn't effect yours at all. It simply deletes all of mine and puts your whole playlist on it instead. Let me know! I would be super duper thankful and blessed!
Philippians 4:6 Don't worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.
Love you all-
Jen
He was sharing with us different ways to draw near to God (and He will draw near to you). He gave us many different things to try. I decided Sunday morning to try one of them. Well, actually it was two things tied together. One thing was to ditch the secular music that was on my i-pod. The second was to spend my prayer time and my day giving thanks for everything I could think of. Pastor Jim encouraged us to spend two days doing nothing but giving thanks. Sounded easy enough. I do have a lot to be thankful for! So, I decided to implement these two things in my morning run.
I would like to say a couple things about the secular music. There are songs that I used to listen to in the 80's and 90's that definitely bring me down to a "remember when" video flashback. A song will bring me to a moment so specific that I can tell you exactly where I was, what I was doing, what I was wearing and who else was there. I can almost taste the specific drink I had at that moment. Depending on the memory, I have caught myself smiling, or getting teary eyed and feeling sick to my stomach. I learned years ago that I cannot listen to the music of my past. I turned away from it long ago.
Today's music doesn't have that same effect on me. There are no memories that tie me to the music. However, now that I am a new creature, and I have the Holy Spirit living inside of me, I have found my taste has changed. I listen to Christian music 90% of the time. Every once in a while I flip through the channels. Sometimes I will come across a song I like. However, if there are negative words, or things mentioned that are contrary to my beliefs, my spirit is quick to respond and say "no thanks!"
So why do I have secular music on my i-pod? Bottom line is I am lazy. I bought my i-pod from my 16 year old niece 2 years ago. I have never downloaded anything into it. I don't even have the cord to hook it up to my computer. I simply bring it to her house and her entire playlist gets downloaded to my i-pod. She added a few Christian songs to her playlists for me, but not enough to get me through a workout. So, I have been listening to teeny bopper music off and on for 2 years. (one year I had my nephews music downloaded which was better. He is in college and had a much larger Christian and non Britney like selections). I admit I like the beat of a lot of the teeny bopper music. It is great to run to. However, the lyrics are unbelievably awful! I have learned which ones to skip completely and found a few that surprising have no mention of alcohol, murder, jealousy, revenge, sex, or anything else you find in the Old Testament dramas (but without the glory of God and life lessons!) So, I figured as long as I just listened to the "ok" ones, It was ok. Lately however I have been feeling the nudge of "this is not okay". Especially because I believe the Lord has put running in my heart. So why would I listen to anything other than music that glorified Him as I run? I know, it seems like no brainer. And it is......but have you ever tried running without music? It is not fun! But Saturday night at church I was fully convicted. So the music has got to go. The cool thing is that now that I have been going to the 5th service more I realize there is awesome music out there....with rhythms that will get my legs running at warped speed.....all to the glory of him!
So, now I am out of time and I haven't even really talked about the challenge. Oh well, maybe one of you have been sitting on the secular music fence and this was for you. I will pick up where we left off tomorrow........
By the way....... If any of you have an awesome playlist on your i-pod, I would love to plug mine in to yours. It doesn't effect yours at all. It simply deletes all of mine and puts your whole playlist on it instead. Let me know! I would be super duper thankful and blessed!
Philippians 4:6 Don't worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.
Love you all-
Jen
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