THE CASE FOR GOSPEL MUSIC

27th April, 1970

I love music. If I am being honest, I am obsessed with music. I am almost always listening to music. It doesn’t matter where I am going, as I grab my phone I almost never leave my headphones behind, and once they are plugged in, I’m numb to the world and lost in the music.

Music gives me the chills. Music speaks to me. I love my old music because it takes me back in time to days I wish I could relive. Music turns the world off when I want to be alone. Music has a way with my emotions. When I feel like screaming it all out, the music does it for me. Music reminds me that whatever I go through, I am neither the first one nor am I alone. Music is the only thing that remains when everything and everyone is gone. Music is the only thing that understands. Music has made me start conversations with people I otherwise would have not talked to. This one time on a bus to school, the guy I was sitting next to was listening to Jermaine Cole’s 2014 Forest Hills Drive. I asked him how much he liked the album and a whole conversation ensued to the point of dreading the minute when one of us would get off the bus first. I sometimes tend to think music is necessary for human survival, but what do I know?

Here’s the thing though: I initially thought that music had no real effect on me and how I perceive things but my view of this has changed a lot this year.

I noticed that each time I dropped something to the floor or thought ill of this person as I looked at them, I would cuss in my mind. I also noticed that I knew perfectly well that it would be blatantly rude to call women by certain names but I was okay with my friends in my ears doing it. I noticed that my heart was slowly, eventually getting seared to a lot of things: the cussing, the misogyny, the drugs, the sex, it all started to look acceptable as it slowly became a part of me.

Also, most worryingly, I am a Christian for crying out loud. The music I listen to is not Christian music. And I know this because I cannot play it on the speaker when other Christians are around. I know it because the other day, when a friend from my Christian fellowship asked to see my playlist I nervously chuckled at him and said, “next time.” The funny thing is I do have friends with whom I can listen to this music with. And already this opens the floor to a lot of questions about my Christianity. I mean, tell me what music you listen to and I’ll tell you who you are, right?

I would love to write about how to define music a Christian should listen to but that would require an entire blog post of its own. Do not hold your breath, I do not think I am writing about that any time soon. There are a few ways, though, that you could know that the music you listen to you should or should not. Most importantly, you should probably listen to that voice in your head that you keep on ignoring. Ask yourself where you draw the line for what music you listen to. Ask yourself whether you even draw a line. Ask yourself whether you use God’s word to draw the line. Also, if your heart does not condemn you as you listen to your music, because there’s nothing wrong with it and not because you heart has been seared, then you can have confidence towards God.

Here are three reasons why I want to listen to gospel music more than any other kind of music.

I run to my worldly music (music that does not belong in the life of a Christian) when I am going through a hard time. But as a Christian, is that the first thing I should really be doing? There’s a reggae song that tells me to emancipate myself from mental slavery. It tells me that none but myself can free my mind. The music, even though may include some degree of truth, focuses on me, myself and I. But that is not what my bible teaches me. All my worldly music teaches me, at the root of it all, is to take pride and to trust in self. Gospel music does the exact opposite: It tells me that even as I go through a hard time, even after praying and being so sure that God would have looked down and wiped my tears away, stepped in and saved the day, I could say amen, open my eyes and find it still raining. The music teaches me that I must still go on to lift my hands and praise God in the storm, because He is who He is, no matter where I am. That every tear I cry, He holds in His hands and He’ll never leave my side. And though my heart is torn, the music teaches me, to praise Him in the storm.

Then, remember how I sat next to this guy on a bus and had a whole conversation about 2014 Forest Hills Drive? Let’s assume he was not a Christian. I think about how far I would have been of help to him if we had talked about a gospel song or album. We talked about how Cole was aware of the structure and pace of good rap albums and was anxious to apply it all to his music. We mourned over how his songs would have worked best if he wasn’t busy telling us how good he thought they were. All these things would not live passed that conversation. I could have told him about how Lecrae, on one of his songs, tells a story of how it was 5:46 one morning when sermons kept on reoccurring in his head. They kept him sweating in his sheets he couldn’t sleep. His mind kept telling him that because of the way he was living his life he was going to hell. The reason he couldn’t change was like a mystery to him. He had heard, without pause, that God loved him so much that He shed His blood for him but he felt like he was too messed up for love. His whole life was full of sin because that’s all he knew. The bible told him that Jesus died for his sins and that if he believed in Him, He could save him from the end. He thought he had to clean up his life first before going to Christ but later realized that all he had to do was cling to the Light. So he prayed from an honest heart and asked the One who died for him to take him as he was and to save him from the inside out. But instead of preaching Christ to him through the music I knew he loved, I danced around the Truth, and as I did so, time was not on his side as that could have been the last chance he had to hear the gospel. I shouldn’t have curved to the weight of the fear that I was feeling. I was sitting right there and I was there for a reason. One awkward moment could have been the one that saved a life and shown the gospel come alive.

Worldly music also makes light of sin. The sex in the lyrics lowers inhibitions and makes people less thoughtful. It personifies a love for drugs and makes women look like lesser beings through belittling rhetoric. It tells me that if I am losing a part of me then maybe I do not want heaven. It also tells me that God can understand when I am sinning as long as what I am doing is coming from a heart of love. And as the music swells and makes light of sin, it slowly leads me, like an ox to the slaughter, to sin. My gospel music teaches me to pause and ask myself if I am ready to meet God. It asks me if it means nothing to me that Jesus died. We know nothing about the season when this world will pass away but only His saints have reason to expect a glorious day. But if I choose to harden my heart and remain a friend of the world, then I’m on the brink of danger, unrehearsed, as I stand before a Holy God. A careless sinner, what will then become of me?

Because of this, I have set out to start listening to a lot of gospel music. If I am always listening to music, why not make it filled with the gospel? God wants me to see His glory again and again and gospel music can help me see it. I still have a few of those worldly songs because, truth be told, some of them are hard to delete. Them and I go way back. Plus, music is addictive, trust me. But every day I am trying to delete them and I hope I do before I turn into a pillar of salt. The world and all of its desires are passing away and if anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

yours,

Suzyo Tilabilenji