Friday, 13 July 2012

What Do You Listen To?

So this weekend, I have decided to take a road trip out to visit a friend of mine who lives in a small country town about 6 hours away from where I am. She moved here a couple of years ago, and I had not yet been out to see her, so I thought it was about time I did something about that!

Anyways, so I had a 6 hour trip in the car on my own which brings up many things...
1. Do I have enough fuel?
2. Is my radiator filled up (with whatever it needs to be filled up with)?
3. Are my tires safe?
4. Do I want to take some food and drink?
5. Which way do I want to go?
6. How many stops should I take?
7. What should I listen to? 

I want to focus on the last thing... what should I listen to?

I had 6 hours in my car so choosing what I was going to be hearing for those 6 hours is very important. You may not realise it but what we listen to speaks to us, and starts to influence the way we think. So when I chose what to listen to for a large portion of my day, I wanted to make sure I was not listening to rubbish. 

In the end I chose to put on a random playlist of a couple of my favourite Christian artists and praise and worship bands, mostly Kari Jobe and Jesus Culture. I then spent 6 hours feeding my mind and my heart with Jesus. 

It's actually quite amazing what listening to the right music can do. I found myself feeling thankful, happy and just generally extremely cheerful as I drove along. Thankful for Jesus and for my life. A lot of other music these days focuses on break ups and heart aches, if I had spent 6 hours listening to this type of music I'm pretty sure I would have started feeling quite down myself. It's happened to me many times before. 

So I basically spent a lot of time today thinking about and realising just how important it is that we think about the things we not only listen to but also, the things we watch. Everything in this world can speak to us, it's important we fill it with things of God, and not things of the world. When we allow too much of the worldly views to take up our time, we soon begin to neglect our Christian walk, and begin to follow the world. 

Thankful for: Wide Open Spaces

I guess after the long drive today, wide open spaces are on my mind. I drove through a lot of hills and emptiness. It really is beautiful. It's important that we have places to live, but there is something special, something peaceful about the open air and spaces without buildings. If you spend lots of time in built up areas  I suggest you get out there and visit a wide open space. You'll soon find that you feel more peaceful and extremely thankful for everything.

No comments:

Post a Comment