Resounding Music

Switching our home broadband provider to get a better deal sounded like such a great idea at the time, that is until I had to spend over an hour on the phone with their technical support team trying to sort out some issues with the new connection. As normally happens in these situations, I spent the vast majority of that time on hold!

For all I know he was making a brew or having a paper-aeroplane making competition in the office, but all I was left with was their truly awful on-hold music playlist. One minute I felt like I was in a Bollywood film, the next I was listening to techno. It was torture. All I could think about was the dread that one of these tracks would get stuck in my head.

We’ve all been there. Someone plays a song or hums a tune, and it somehow gets lodged in our head and we find ourselves humming it for hours to come. The worst part, of course, is that this normally only happens with songs that we don’t even like. They become a resounding tune in our heads.

Today’s verse talks about a different kind of resounding music. It’s a well-known passage that expresses the desire to please the Lord in the way we speak, and in our deepest thoughts. The part about words is straightforward – don’t curse, don’t undermine, don’t criticise, don’t betray – remember that your words are powerful and can bring life or death (Proverbs 18:21). But what does ‘the meditation of my heart’ mean?

Well, interestingly, the Hebrew word for meditation includes the phrase ‘resounding music’. I find that so helpful in understanding this familiar Christian phrase. What is the ‘resounding music’ of my heart? What are the lyrics that are stuck on repeat, and go round and round? Maybe they are bitter thoughts, because of the words or actions of others. Maybe they are lustful thoughts. Maybe they are thoughts of self-hatred.

There can be many things on the loop in our heart, but the challenge is to make sure that whatever is on that loop is pleasing to the Lord. That basically means the resounding music is something He would agree with, and delight in, and bless.

So, maybe today is a good opportunity to examine the playlist of our heart, to reject the resounding music of sin and negativity, and to commit to a new playlist that God can sing along to and delight in.