Day 28: Family Media Detox

As today’s video explains, our Craigslist ad finally paid off:  The TV was sold! A young fellow who looked like he may have been a college student outfitting his dorm room got quite a bargain.  But the transaction reminded of something that occurred years ago, when I got convicted that my huge collection of secular rock ‘n’ roll cd’s needed to go.

I had always loved rock (the edgier, the better) and I had amassed a remarkable library of music; if I were to deny that the sometimes satanic, always worldly content of those songs influenced me, I’d be lying.  My sins were my own and completely my responsibility, but the culture I embraced did nothing to discourage my depravity.

When I decided to get serious about my Christian faith, I realized that the “garbage-in, garbage-out” principle was most vividly played out in my own life through the music with which I saturated my brain.  I wanted to present my body as a living sacrifice of worship, I wanted my mind renewed, (Romans 12:2) and I wanted to “come out from them and be separate” (2 Cor. 6:17)

Much like we have done all this month with TV, movies, video games, mp3 players and Facebook, I felt I needed to get rid of that music for my own spiritual health.  But what I did was I took it to a music store that bought used records and sold my collection to them.  They, in turn, would re-sell it to other people who might be just as susceptible to its influence.  Only later did I recognize the folly of what I’d done.

The difference is obvious, of course – a cd of wicked music is always a cd of wicked music, but a television can be used to view “Facing the Giants” just as easily as “The Hangover.”

I just pray I haven’t contributed a stumbling block to someone else’s life by ridding my own life of one.