I’ve loved music my whole life. As a kid, I was just fascinated with the sound and spent nights with a transistor radio under my pillow so I could hear the music, but my parents could not.
As I got older, my parents gave in to my pleas for a record player. A little small suitcase thing with an internal speaker. Looking back, the sound quality was terrible, but I listened for hours.
My parents went to a cafeteria restaurant often and I’d skip a meal to go to the record store a few doors down. The store had a player to listen to records before you bought them. I’d play 45 rpm singles, often more than once, before spending the dollar or two that I’d saved. Mom and Dad weren’t big on financing The Yardbirds and Cream, but I somehow got away with these forays into rock and roll.
After I started making a (very) little money, part of it went to music. I thought I hit the big time when I got my first real stereo with a receiver, turntable, and two speakers. And, of course, my first KISS album caused something of a dust-up in the house.
You might be wondering why this trip down music memory lane is a Set Free blog. Fair question. My first answer is that both music and being a Christian can be pretty simple. In music, you can do a lot with an A chord.
In contrast, to the complex man-made rules of the Pharisees, Jesus came for all the world and made it simple:
Love God with all your heart and love thy neighbor as you love yourself.
Matthew 22
Learn and live those two rules and live as a new creation.
2 Corinthians 5
My second answer is that both music and The Word of God always leave you wanting more. After listening to music for a while, I wanted to know more about this wonderful thing. Pitch, rhythm, melody and countless other concepts added to the magic of the simple A chord.
The same thing happened reading The Word of God. The more I read (often with a guitar in my lap), the more I want to read. Like the A chord, everything is in Jesus’ two basic commandments. But the basics lead to a rich and profound experience
After all this, a weird thing happened. My favorite songs are all classic rock and blues. I’ve been listening to some for almost 50 years. Ever since I first heard them on a little record player.
Some of the music, and the bands that played it, would definitely not be generally regarded as Christian. But reading the Word of God has caused me to hear them in a very new way. The lyrics, the chord progressions and especially the guitar solos had different meanings and power.
I guess God just knows how to reach out to us.