Uggghhh...CONVICTION!

Hi, my name is Christina.  I've been walking with the Lord for about 9 years now and you'd think I'd have learned this lesson by now.

I'm kid-free this afternoon and instead of doing my power cleaning like I usually do when I find myself alone I took full advantage to work on a project (I'll blog about that later).  Anytime I'm alone I blast music.  Confession time...most of the time, when I'm alone, I like to listen to secular club/dance/hip-hop music on Pandora.  Don't get me wrong, I love my praise & worship and contemporary christian music and 99% of the time that's what I listen to BUT when I'm home alone and working on something, the beat of club/dance music keeps me motivated to continue working on whatever it is I'm working on. 

Sadly, most of today's dance music has awful lyrics.

It's close to the time that my children should be returning home and a song is playing and most of it is about sex and I found myself worried that my friend was going to show up and hear the music I was listening to and think that I'm an awful christian.  Seriously. 

Then...I heard it...the Lord!  He's always so loving and gentle with me when He convicts me even with things that He's convicted me about in the past.  Uggghhh...  You see, I go in spurts.  When I started walking with the Lord 9 years ago, I came home and threw out EVERY.  SINGLE.  cd I owned!  My poor husband (who is not a believer) thought I was nuts but I didn't want anything filling my head that wasn't about the Lord.  Fast forward to now.  Over the years I will find myself listening to secular music that talks about things I shouldn't be filling my head with.  Then the Lord will convict me about it and I'll quit listening to it.  Then I'll start wanting to work out and add dance/club music to my ipod to get me moving.  Then I'll get the conviction and quit.  Then I'll hear a song somewhere and look it up on itunes, add it to my ipod, hear more songs, add those.  Then the conviction...on and on.  I've always been pretty good about not listening to it around my kids.  I mean come on, have you heard a 5 year old singing lyrics to a song that made your mouth drop?  Yeah, I have and I don't ever want it to be MY kid singing those words.  If you haven't, all you have to do is look on youtube and people have posted videos of their kids dancing and singing to some songs that they shouldn't have been listening to in the first place, let alone memorizing!  YIKES! 

Anyways, back to my conviction.

As I had my little panic, the Lord ever-so-sweetly spoke to my heart.
"What about me?" I heard Him ask.

Here I am, worried that my friend would hear me listening to this music when all along, the Lord has been by my side all afternoon, listening to it with me.  :(
O-U-C-H!!!

Why am I listening to music that I won't allow my kids to listen to?
Why am I listening to music that I don't want my christian friends to hear me listening to?
WHY AM I LISTENING TO MUSIC THAT I WOULDN'T WANT JESUS TO KNOW I'M LISTENING TO?

If I could physically see Jesus in my house, would I have EVER turned on that Pandora station?  HECK NO!
It's so easy (sadly) to forget that He's here all the time.  He sees everything.  It's not like I can hide it from Him.
I want desperately to have my whole life bring nothing but glory and honor to my Savior.  We can only pour out what we take in and if I'm listening to these inappropriate songs, what am I thinking about and what is going to pour out of my mouth?  Inappropriate stuff, that's what!

Alright, so that's my big conviction of the day! 
This goes for movies & tv shows too.  I shouldn't be watching anything that I wouldn't sit down and watch with Jesus. 

Time to weed some stuff out!!