billboard toppers and my stingy heart

when i was growing up, we weren't allowed to listen to "secular" music. ask any of my brothers or me if we always followed that, and you will get a hearty no from probably all of us (sorry mom and dad - but how do you think you can keep us all away from macy gray when "i try" is a top seller?).

i do recall a hangout time in my best friend's house in chicago: it was 1999 and my ears wanted backstreet boys (i'm ashamed of this - NSYNC 'til the day i die) so badly. i left feeling super guilty. i would try to talk my mom into letting me listen to certain songs by saying i could switch the obvious implications of words to a lover, to God. this worked out particularly well with celine dion.

now - over a decade later, i'm sending secular spotify playlists to my parents and they are eating them up. but i still find myself listening to songs and switching the meanings. i don't know if i hate it or love it. guess it's just habit. but noah gundersen sings this song called winter and it is lovely. he says, "if the sun could shine in brighter than all your distractions..." you know where i'm going with this? i interchange son/sun a lot. it just happens in my head as naturally as singing songs about everything i'm doing (just taking out a fork... gonna stab this little piece of chicken, oh yeahhh... then i'll take a shower and wash this mane on my head ooooh).

but guys what if the son shone in brighter than all of our distractions? would your life look super similar to how it is right now? or would it look really different? since sandy came, i've realized i still have some traces of the disease that plagues all relationships with God everywhere: compartmentalization. i thought i'd healed up from it. guess not... because my finances show a big gap between how i want to want to spend my money. how's that for transparency?

i still suffer from that "what i make is mine" mentality. i'm coming to grips right now with "my time is not my own", but the financial aspect of this picture is looking really blurry to me. i've narrowed it down to a dislike of giving to anonymity. i want to know who i'm giving to, what it's going towards, and what the fruit looks like.

my generosity has been stifled by myself and i need God to shine in brighter than the distraction of comfortable spending in the midst of gigantic struggling. i can't close my eyes and shake my head in disagreement of the rich spending, spending, spending and not giving while i try to ignore the fact that to most of america: i'm the rich.

james 4:7 - "say a quiet yes to God, and he'll be there in no time." {{{yessss, God - help meeee}}} (that was me being quiet)