Once when there were kids from church all around him, my son played a song by the Eraserheads.  The kids looked at him in shock and asked him “Your mom allows you to play worldly songs?”  My son was shocked by that question.  When we were in the car on the way home, my son asked me “What’s a worldly song, Mom?  Aren’t all songs we sing in this world?  We can’t sing songs from other worlds, can we?”  I had to explain this to him as I will explain this to you now.

Songs aren’t “worldly”, people are. Songs are songs.  Some of them are all about love and romance, some about patriotism, some are about struggle, some are novelties.  They are just songs.  What makes them “worldly” is when the songs call attention to things in the material world instead of focusing attention on spiritual things.

Songs are ubiquitous.  You ride a jeep or a taxi, the radio is on, you hear these “worldly” songs.  No one is immune from hearing them.  I have heard of some people who do not have radios or TVs in their houses so that they can “keep the world out” of their homes.  You cannot keep the world out.  You are still in this world, you have to function in this world and you have to deal with the world.  What you can do is to keep yourself from conforming to the attitudes and demands of this world, but you cannot shun the world.  Christianity is not a hermit’s life.  You cannot hide from viruses, you can only keep your immune system strong so that it can resist viral infections. Resisting viral infections sometimes mean you get sick.  The fever is actually proof that your immune system is fighting the virus.

Appetites and choices make us worldly. It is not the songs we hear or the songs we listen to or the songs we like that makes us “worldly”. It is our appetite for them, that makes us worldly.  It is our need for these things to fill a void in our life, that makes us worldly.  It is the feeling of discomfort or unease that we feel when the radio isn’t on and we can’t indulge our “sound trip” that makes us worldly.  It is when we’d rather listen to these songs than read the Bible or pray that makes us worldly.  It is when the message of the songs become the message of our lives, when the message of the songs become the message we carry around and use to define our lives, then this makes us worldly. When the message of the songs become the truth of our lives, then we have been “conformed” to this world.

So, yes, I allow my children the freedom of listening to songs they like to hear.  I ask to listen to those songs they listen to.  I read the lyrics and we talk about it.  I ask them what they think of the lyrics.  I ask them to understand the lyrics and I also ask them to think about it in light of what the Bible says.

I grew up in a very strict Baptist home.  My mother refused to let me wear jeans, watch movies or go to parties.  That didn’t stop me.  Even if I didn’t wear jeans or go to movies or go to parties, I still desired them in my heart.  When the Betamax became the thing, I watched at home all the movies that my mother wouldn’t allow me to watch in the movie houses.  The world has come into our home, we didn’t need to go out there anymore.

In the same vein, the internet and cable TV is in our home.  I refuse to shield my children from the world that they have to deal with.  But I do insist that they critically evaluate the things they see and hear.  I do require them to judge everything using the Scriptures.  The choice to indulge in these things is theirs.  Even if I use my parental authority to restrict their listening and watching habits, these will still be indulged when they go out with their classmates, in school, and when they go to college.  What is more important to me is that they learn to discern what pleases God and what is good for the development of their minds.

Did I allow m y children to compete in the Battle of the Bands?  Of course, I did.  My kids play the guitar extremely well.  Their father taught them.  Playing the guitar is something the three of them do well together.  It is one of the skills my kids learned at home.  They have a talent for it.  I require them to sing and play with me when I sing at church or when I am invited to sing and to teach elsewhere. So I also give them the freedom to express themselves in school when they perform at convocations, at school plays and in competitions.

The Battle of the Bands was a school activity.  The kids learned something from it, believe it or not.  My son’s group has been playing together since their freshman year.  They bring their guitars on days that they had vacant periods and they jammed together.  The reason why my son’s group won was because they worked hard, they practiced, and they used their combined talents to mash up the four or five songs they sang.  They arranged the songs so that the songs were seamlessly sang as a medley.  It takes incredible concentration to do this.  My daughter’s band was formed in response to a need: there were no bands to represent the sophomore year.  They rose to the occasion.  They mashed up their songs and practiced.  My kids learned hard work, diligence and dedication and focus through this exercise.

My kids had to get up the nerve to stand up in front of people they went to school with and performed for them.  They risked being teased on the hallways had they not performed well.  They also had to bring themselves to work up a stage presence, to project themselves and to enjoy the task and the music they were playing.  They had to perform.  It takes nerve and gumption to do this.  They saw that they had the nerve and gumption to do what needed to be done to get what they wanted.

They learned how to cooperate with other people who were equally talented as they were.  They had to learn how to build consensus, to learn to disagree without being disagreeable, to object objectively.  They learned to save up money to pay for the studio fees when  they practiced.  They learned how to shop for bargains to come up with a costume. They learned to compete.  They learned who they were and what they were capable of. They learned so many things.

As a Bible believer, I always pray that my kids make God number one in their lives. I try to set a good example.  I try to show them what it means, in the daily life, to surrender to God. I think that if you don’t know what you are giving up to follow God, you have not counted the cost of following Christ.  You must know what the world is, what your place is in the world and what the world can do for you AND THEN make the deliberate choice to turn away from the world and to follow Christ.  Surrender must be a deliberate and informed choice.  Surrender cannot be accomplished by sheer parental stricture.  Believe me, I lived through it, it doesn’t work.

I am praying that God will work in them so that even with a modicum of success “in the world” they will still feel restless unless they are living for God.  I pray that as the Holy Spirit worked in me, He will also work in them, sanctifying them through the truth.  I pray that God will show them that it does not profit to gain the whole world and lose their own soul. I think God is answering my prayer. On the way home after the battle of the bands, after the adrenaline had died down somewhat, we were all sitting together and talking, my daughter said, “You know what?  If not for winning, that battle of the bands was a pain.”  We all looked at her in shock. “My nail beds are encrusted in blood from practicing and practicing.  My wrists are so sore.  My shoulder hurts from carrying that heavy guitar.  I am so tired out.  I’m happy we won, but I’m happier that it’s all over.”

The day after, my son watched a video one of his classmates uploaded on youtube.  He said, “I thought we sounded better.  I’m so disappointed.  I thought we deserved to win.  But when I saw the video, I found so many mistakes and so many things that weren’t right.  We were better at rehearsal. I’m just relieved we won.  If I were the judge, I’d probably not let us win.”

The first step toward finding God is to find that the world and the pleasures of the world leave a bad taste in the mouth.  It gives exhilaration but it does not satisfy the soul. Distaste with the world can only happen when one is exposed to the world, and one is also equally exposed to spiritual things.  The contrast between the ways of the world and the ways of God will force them to make a decision.  I am counting on God to “engineer” the events of their lives so that they can be brought to the point of surrender, to turning away from being “conformed” the world and choosing Christ instead.  This happened to me, and I trust, this will also happen to them: God will work in their lives so that they will “see” the world for what it is so that they may choose Christ.