by Sabrina Justison
I have songs playing in my head all the time. I am wired for music, love to sing, am fascinated by chord progressions and timing….plus, I’m a word geek, so there’s always the lyrics to a song grabbing hold of me and running my brain.
I don’t hate it when a song gets stuck in my head, but I do hate it when I forget to “set the station” in my head to a GOOD song. Imagine if you hated mariachi band music, but that was the only channel your car radio could receive clearly, and you kept the volume up every time you drove. Wouldn’t that mess with your mood? (Ole!)
The songs in my head are sometimes good for my mood; other times they are not so good. Since the volume is permanently “up” in this girl’s brain, that means I need to make sure I’m tuned in to a good song for my background music.
I must know a million hymns and worship songs, and I regularly take a second to tune my brain into one of those to keep my mood on track with God’s good plans for my day.
“To the left, to the left….everything you own in a box to the left…” is not actually going to help me accomplish anything good with my time and energy today.
But if I “switch the station” to, “Our God is greater, our God is stronger, God, You are higher than any other!” I will see a good result.
Maybe music doesn’t play in your head constantly like it does in mine, but the principle is the same for everyone’s brain. You are always thinking about something…..the Bible calls that “meditating.” It doesn’t mean meditation in the eastern religion mystical way, seated on the floor in lotus-position, chanting. It means something running over and over in your brain; it means trying to make greater and greater sense of whatever an idea is. You can’t turn it off; your brain is always thinking about SOMETHING.
Sometimes those thoughts are things that will drag you down.
“He’s two-faced. He’s not a real friend to me. He let me down when I needed him most. He claims to care, but obviously he doesn’t.” On and on, we replay things that make us frustrated, hurt, angry and depressed.
What would happen if you switched the station?
“God sees the broken hearted, and He wraps them up in His love until they heal. He is the God of all comfort. He wastes none of my tears. He is the lover of my soul.”
What song is stuck in your head?
How true. So many times the sound track of life is a replay of what I perceive are the arrows slung my way. Turning the channel isn’t always that easy for me. One of the struggles I have always had is really implementing the ‘taking every thought into captivity’. How do you do that? Because we are always thinking. Even when I change the channel, somehow the tunner gets set back to the old station. The old is gone, all things are new only happens with the renewing of the mind. Hmmm…. Yes. Prayer, reading the word, study, fellowship so that iron can indeed sharpen iron, calling on my brothers for an encouraging word when I’m truly stuck on a bad channel or thought pattern. Good post, Sabrina.