The MegaMix
My Bible listening has been insanely profitable and productive over the last three months. My ears and heart have been stuffed with life changing gold refined by fire seven times. At times I have felt my head is overwhelmed with an overload of information to process. Even now I have over twenty passages or realizations I wish to discuss.
Because of this virtual audio overload, I have decided to adjust my Winamp playlist at work. If I continue pouring the Word in my ears in this fashion, my headphones will transform from a distraction and background noise muter to a distraction in of themselves! It's somewhat of a sad debate to endure, as everything in me wants to listen to the Bible more and more. Nevertheless, if I'm going to keep food on the plate and a roof over my head, I need to focus more on my duties while at work.
The adjustment I made involved adding some music tracks into my Winamp playlist. Of course by doing this I incur the risk of only enhancing the effectiveness of Scripture by surrounding it with inspirational music. I guess that's a risk I'm willing to take :) I now have a list of 441 tracks that loop continuously in my ears.
As I have always done, I hand selected the music albums to be ones that notoriously both comfort and challenge me. Selections include Forgiven Much, Terry McGlasson, Third Day, Paul Ramey and Keith Green (I respect no musician more - a modern-day King David). I randomized the order of the tracks and turned on the shuffle feature to boot. I have no idea which track will come next: music or scripture. The likelihood of two consecutive Bible chapters playing is pretty slim.
My reasoning behind this change is to get less distracted from work by listening and regaining the benefit of dulling down the distracting conversations and noise in the office. In the meantime, I still benefit of getting saturated with exactly the medicine my heart requires.
After some thought I realized that the randomness of the track order also potentially allows God to more powerfully "show up". Comparable to casting lots, an element of what appears to us as "chance" frees the Spirit to soar and shine. When we assume we know exactly what we need or want (self-diagnose), there's little room for God to speak what He knows we need to hear. Now I believe God has the ability to use randomness to His advantage (my advantage). Great! I've seen this happen a couple times already. What should be entirely arbitrary has proved to be selected tracks speaking to me when I need them. The shock of the seemingly perfect timing becomes an element of inspiration and praise in of itself.
The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD.
Proverbs 16:33 ESV
I am titling this playlist of music and Bible "The MegaMix".