Make a Joyful Noise

Psalm 98
1. A Psalm. Oh, sing to the Lord a new song! For he has done marvelous things; His right hand and his holy arm have gained Him the victory. 2. The Lord has made known His salvation; His righteousness He has revealed in the sight of the nations. 3. He has remembered His mercy and His faithfulness to the house of Israel; All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God. Shout joyfully to the Lord, all the earth; Break forth in song, rejoice, and sing praises. 5. Sing to the Lord with the harp. With the harp and the sound of a psalm, 6. With trumpets and the sound of a horn; Shout joyfully before the Lord, the King. 7. Let the sea roar, and all its fullness, The world and those who dwell in it; 8. Let the rivers clap their hands; Let the hills be joyful together before the Lord, 9. For He is coming to judge the earth. With righteousness He shall judge the world, And the peoples with equity.


As I was driving down the road the other day, I got to thinking; our world sure is driven by music. I know that I cannot suffer a drive to or from work without having music going. As I go around campus, more people than not are plugged into some kind of sound while they walk to and from class. Some people even go so far as to listen to them while IN class! When I was growing up, I had to have the radio on to go to sleep. Tara has to have the TV on. The kids usually have either the radio or a CD playing when they lay down. So what kind of music are people listening to? Some people make it known to the world what they are listening to, as they crank it up so loud that the bass shakes my car sometimes. I’ve stopped people on traffic stops before and had to tell them to turn off their radio so I could talk to them.

There are all kinds of music: Rap, Rock, Hip Hop, R&B, Country, Oldies, Swing, Big Band, Blues, Jazz, and the list could go on and on. When I was growing up, my parents listened to Country music, or as it was called in the early 80’s, Country and Western. I would listen to the likes of George Jones, Merle Haggard, Conway Twitty, the Oak Ridge Boys, etc. My favorite was Ray Stevens with “The Streak.” But I was also exposed to some of the artists from the 50’s and 60’s as that is the era my mom grew up in (never really sure what my dad’s favorite music was. He didn’t listen to the radio much when we drove places). My mom’s favorites were Elvis and the Beach Boys. As I got older, my tastes adapted as well. I moved into 50’s and 60’s music, and then into more of the rock stuff, like ZZ Top, Aerosmith, Guns n’ Roses. To date myself, when I was a freshman in high school, the anthem of the year was “Welcome to the Jungle” by Guns n’ Roses. When I was a senior, it was “Enter Sandman” by Metallica. When I went to college, I was first exposed to MTV and VH1. It was still musically based back in the mid-90’s. This exposed me to other types of music that were becoming more popular such as Grunge and Rap.

The one kind of music I NEVER listened to, though, was Christian music. To me, Christian music were the hymns you sang in church, or one of the Ole Time Gospel groups, that sang “I’ll Fly Away.” It wasn’t until Tara and I were married that I really began to be convicted about my music. And it wasn’t until Tara started nagging me about it, that I actually stopped and thought about what she was saying. I had never been exposed to Christian before. But shortly after that, I got rid of almost all of my secular CD’s, and I had quite a large collection. Shortly after that, I found K-Love radio station. It was then that I realized that I could still listen to the same type of music that I like to listen to, but with lyrics that glorify Jesus. A few years after that, I discovered Air1 and The House radio stations, which play Alternative and harder Christian music. I will admit that some of the stuff I hear, I wonder how it is classified as Christian. Especially after reading some of the artists’ websites.

The other thing that I have noticed though, is that since I almost exclusively listen to some type of Christian music, my kids like it as well. For those people who say they only listen to music “for the beat” and not the lyrics, I say hogwash!! The beat may be what draws you to the music, but if you continue to listen to the song, you will learn the lyrics, whether they be good or bad. My son is especially adept at learning songs, at least the chorus of the song that gets repeated. I first noticed his interest in music one day when “Jesus Freak” came on the radio. He would sit in the floor and sway back and forth like Stevie Wonder to the music. He can sing parts of “Take My Life” by Jeremy Camp and he is now learning the words to “Whispers in the Dark” by Skillet. We bought him a radio for his room about a month ago, so he has now decided that he should go through our CD collection and sample different radio stations. He discovered Blues music one night and seems to enjoy that (not sure who he gets that from, it’s certainly not me!). He has also taken a liking to some Classical music, especially Tchaikovsky and Rossini. I have noticed that Paige doesn’t tend to like the tween idols. She quickly grew out of the Hannah Montana phase, and she will leave the room if the Jonas Brothers come on TV. She is currently into Toby Mac, Skillet and Superchick. I’ll take any of those over the Disney teen idols. We have all seen what kind of track record they have in the long run.

I know this blog has drawn on long enough, so I will close with this: Music we listen to is pumped straight into our brain. The old cliché of “Garbage in, Garbage out” is so true. If we fill our mind with trash, then all we have become is a trash can. We need to be a pitcher fill with cold, refreshing, pure water so that we can be useful to others around us. We may be the person that gives the saving drink to the person dying of thirst.