Prayer and Music

“One good thing about music, when it hits you fell okay. I said one good thing about music, when it hits you fell okay.” - Bob Marley

One thing that I can’t imagine going without is music.
Music has the ability to change my worse mood. I don’t care about the lyrics so much, I don’t care about the genre, just give me good music.
I don’t want trash, I don’t want heavy, I don’t want gangster, just give me real music. I don’t even need to understand the language – as long as the beat is good and the voice is wow – I’ll like. My two favourite songs now – Shake it off (Mariah Carey) and Ba Bump (Black Eyed Peas) “It’s that beat that make you shake your rump”.

There was a time when I couldn’t leave my house in the morning without hearing good music first. The song that I listened to before I left would set the mood for my day. When I got home at night, I would put on a song that expressed the mood that I wanted to feel. I found that I could literally change how I felt with one song.

I’ve since found something better. That is the power of prayer. Yes sometimes prayer feels like “dry lima beans in a dry mouth on a dry day”, but there are other times where prayer takes me to the very throne room of the Almighty. Every burden is lifted. God takes what weighs me down and replaces it with joy. That is truly amazing. Through prayer I have learnt not to be dependent on music to change my feeling. I now subjugate my feelings by prayer with the Almighty.

But there are times when prayer is tough. Sometimes all I want is to ignore the problems that confront me in life and wait (and hope) for them to pass. I just need a quick change in mood. And music does that for me. When work is tough, or my family relations are not good, or when friends are painful – sometimes I just want to go into fantasy, pretend that everything is okay. I put on music. But music does not fix the problem. Music ends. Problem remains.

There are things that I must do to grow. I can not hope the problem disappears. I need to turn to the Almighty in prayer. This is tough at times – Really tough. God doesn’t just make the problem disappear. He builds me up. He takes my pride and equips me with His Spirit. God will give me peace and strength. This always results in courage to step out and confront the issues of life. Sometimes I just want to walk away, but then I look at Jesus. He did not walk away when things got tough. He saw the end. He knew the outcome. He consecrated His will to Gods will and chose to die on the cross.

That is my example. Jesus is who I should follow. Nevertheless, music still makes you “feel” okay. I truly enjoy good music. I just need to learn what to lean on.