Finding Love

Nothing touches one's soul like music and as a consequence, nothing can sway one's thinking and  have an influence on one's worldview like music.  This thought passed through my mind as listened to an  " oldies, but goldie's" radio station this morning while going through the mail.

Teens today, just like teens in my day, will tell their parents that they just listen to the beat of a song and  pay no attention to the lyrics.  That was foolishness in my teen years and it is still foolishness today.  This morning, a song would come on the radio that I had not heard in years, yet I could sing along with it as if I had just heard it yesterday.  This summer, I had the same experience on a mission trip, as teens knew the words to every song that came on the Country and Western station that they insisted we listen to as we drove to and from our job site.

The reason I bring this up is that over the years I have come to realize that the music I listened to in high school and college, just as the music teens are listening to today, presented a false and potentially dangerous worldview.   The lyrics seem to carry one basic theme:  one can find ultimate joy and fulfillment in life by finding the right romantic love.  I can't deny that I came to accept this worldview in my youth much to my sorrow.

I learned through hard experience that nothing could be further from the truth, and I believe that it is this view that has contributed  to a breakdown in the family and hence an erosion of our culture that can be traced to that breakdown.  Americans, with a false idea of love promoted by the culture, particularly popular music,  are marrying with the expectation that their new spouses  meet their every emotional need.   This is the secular expectation of "love".  The fact, though, is that if we love a human being and do not love God, we end up demanding  perfection in that human being, and when we do not get it, we usually become cruel and vindictive.  We are demanding something which no human can possibly give and without God, we have no source to fill  the longing of our soul.

Shortly after they were married, someone asked Ruth Graham if Billy made her happy.  Her reply that it was not Billy's job to make her happy was very instructive.  Ruth said that while she did find happiness in being married to him, she would never put the demand on Billy to be  the sole source of her happiness.  Ruth was a smart woman.

St. Augustine, at the start of his Confessions said, "God, you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in you."  God has put a longing within the heart of man that only He  can satisfy no matter what the musicians say.  Only a relationship with Him can be the source of true joy and happiness.  We would be best served to remember that, enjoy the music, but listen to it with a discerning ear.  That is loving God with all of your mind.