In the beginning (or, at least ever since I had a debit card), I became a monthly Spotify Premium member. Using the student discount the popular streaming service offers, I had the ability to listen to as much music as I wanted to.
Now, I heavily enjoy music. I have my favorite artists and genres that I spend a good amount of time rocking out to; I'm an avid concertgoer and gladly drive hours upon hours into the city of Seattle to see musical superstars perform.
But that's precisely the problem God convicted me of throughout the past couple of weeks: I sacrifice too much of my time to the 'altar' of music.
Over winter break, while spending some time in prayer one day, I felt that God led my thoughts to reflect on how much time and money I truly spend on music. I felt called to reevaluate what my relationship to music truly is, and how much of my daily time I was 'sacrificing' to the music industry.
I tried to ignore what God brought to my attention, but right after winter break, I attended a sermon that, I felt, really hammered home the message He led me to.
On a Friday night, I attended a weekly fellowship meeting for my community of Jesus followers at WWU. The sermon was on offering our bodies as a living sacrifice to God, which is a message that comes from Paul's letter to a church in Rome:
"Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will" (Romans 12:1-2 NIV)
A key part of this passage that really jumped out at me was the offering of our bodies, or, essentially, our whole selves to God. Our bodies are our physical selves, but also our mind and heart. I reflected on the notes I took during the sermon, especially the image Paul invokes of "sacrifice." I thought to myself, "where am I holding back in how I can be a better 'living sacrifice,' where I am spending my time and energy in places or through ways that are distracting me from being a better follower of Jesus?" Then what God led me to reflect on over winter break came back to me.
Ultimately, I deleted the Spotify app from my phone and downgraded my account from the $5, ad-free, "choose-whatever-music-you-wanna-listen-to-whenever-you-want" account to the more limited, free account.
Ever since making that choice, I have clearly seen what God was trying to lead me to: I was sacrificing a disproportionate amount of time to listening to music and wasting away my free time when, instead, I could be having more time in the morning to "be with God" (prayer, reading and meditating on Scripture, reflecting on messages from sermons, journaling my thoughts and where He led them).
I don't believe Spotify is "evil." Music is a good thing: it relaxes us, helps us release energy and emotion...but among all of those things, music is a gift from God. We can honor and glorify Him in so many ways through music. But, even good things can become 'altars' when we use them selfishly and sacrifice too much of our free time and energy to them, time that could (and should) be spent in living as a Jesus Follower.
What God leads me to in this season of reflection are some simple questions for those reading:
"Where are you spending your available free time? Are you 'sacrificing' more time than you should on pastimes that only serve and benefit you? Where could you better 'sacrifice' or spend your time in offering it to Jesus?"
