Ever get a song stuck in your head?
Boy howdy, I sure do. In fact, I have about 45 years of songs stuck in my head, taking up “disk space” I can ill afford to spare. Some days, nearly every word I hear and situation I encounter reminds me of a song. Like an old MGM musical gone bad.
For example, when I’m in this crazy music mode, if I hear something about a dog–any dog–my brain is liable to go into an automatic, bizarre “Google search,” conjuring up tunes like “Ain’t Nothin’ But a Hound Dog” or “Who Let the Dogs Out?” or “Puppy Love,” or reaching back even further, “How Much is That Doggy in the Window?”
I’m not completely socially retarded, so I don’t always actually belt out all the songs that come to mind, but there are days when it seems I’m riding a big inner tube ride down a musical stream of consciousness.
Perhaps I spent too much of my childhood with a cheap transistor radio pressed against my ear, listening to the music of the 60s. And except for time I spent playing sports or sitting in school, most of my teenage years were lived with a steady soundtrack of 70s hits playing in the background.
For better or worse, that gives me a whole lot of songs, from the ridiculous to the sublime, stored on my mental hard drive.
I hear the washing machine spinning in the laundry room, and what pops into my head?
What else? “Good, good, good, good vibrations,” a la the Beach Boys. (Always including the synthesized “ooh-eee-ooo-ooo-ooo” part.)
Joe comes home from work looking bedraggled and I am Tennessee Ernie Ford musically lamenting, “You load 16 tons and what do ya get? Another day older and deeper in debt…” (The bass is a challenge, but I manage.)
Sometimes it takes a twisted turn. Who else waiting to have a mammogram would have “Thanks for the mammaries” popping into her head? (And yea, I know the real word is “memories.”)
But there is hope. I have come to realize that this superpower can be harnessed for good. I was reading in Psalm 32:7 that God “surrounds me with songs of deliverance.”
Hmmm…what does that mean?
I believe it means that God is constantly trying to show me how to see His goodness in difficult circumstances, how to find light in the darkness, how to walk in His wisdom…where to find the music in life when all the music seems to be gone.
Far too many of the songs stuck in my brain are about far less lofty and important things. (After all, who really needs to know how to “put de lime in de coconut and shake it all up”?) But I have a choice.
I can switch stations, tune into God and hear His “songs of deliverance.”
Life can be hard and we need far more than trite platitudes and schmoozy sentiments to make it through with our hope, joy, peace and faith intact.
I don’t need the “wisdom” of the Beatles or relationship advice from Barry White: I need songs of deliverance. And those don’t come from the playlist in my head – they come from Jesus. Only the music of His heart contains the supernatural power to truly change me and my world.
“You are my hiding place; You will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance.” (Psalm 32:7)