Music is engraved in youth culture. You can't hardly go anywhere without having a soundtrack or playlist playing in the background when teens are involved. That's why I decided to start off this school year looking at a couple of songs. The first one, for this week, is a secular song. I just picked a fairly clean song from the Billboard top 100 songs of 2020, called "Blinding Lights" by The Weeknd. The song has an 80's vibe to it and would be a fun song to dance to if you're into or even good at that sort of thing. In an interview, the artist known as The Weeknd, admits that the song is about driving while intoxicated back to a lover. I don't know about you, but I have a hard time finding out what the meanings of songs are most of the time. When I was a teen I loved songs for their beats. But often the words got stuck in my head without me even realizing it and reared their ugly heads years later when I didn't want them to. I have been a Christian for most of my life, so when I was listening to music in my teen years, most of it wasn't edifying at all. I had a come to Jesus moment where I got rid of all my music by breaking my CD's. That's harder to do now for teens because all their music is electronic. Of course it can be deleted but it can also just as easily be added back in to their playlist.
What I was trying to get the teens in our ministry to realize is that the music they choose to listen to does affect their lives whether the realize it or not. Music tugs on our emotions. Each song is trying to get you to feel something whether it be anger, or sadness, or joy. Since the song mentioned above was about drunk driving we looked at Ephesians 5:15-20. In that passage, Paul tells his readers in Ephesus: "Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit." Since, being filled with the Spirit is such a vague term, we looked at what that means a little bit. But in this passage of Scripture, in particular, Paul talks about three things a person who is filled with the Spirit does: "Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ."
Questions to Discuss as a Family:
- What is your favorite song right now?
- What do you like about it?
- What do you think the saying "garbage in, garbage out" means?
- What do you see in your life that could potentially become an addiction?
- Which of the three examples of someone who is filled with the Spirit does, mentioned above, is the hardest for you to do?
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