Submit to God’s Music
Submit to God’s Music
I was listening to a podcast the other day that talked about how to submit to God’s music. It talked about dancing to the beat of the music and how likely we are to be influenced by that music’s rhythm.
The podcaster took it a step further and paralleled our dancing to someone’s music was subconscious at times. Even if the dancing or music was wrong.
Initially, I was thinking, “Aren’t we supposed to not be influenced by the beat of the music around us? If we’re in a crowd of non-believers, and we start to submit to the beat of their music, isn’t that like surrendering to temptation and allowing it to overcome you? And doesn’t the Bible teach against that?”
But the podcaster was talking about submitting to the beat of God’s music. And I was like whoa, there’s something to that.
Submit to God’s music – I’ve never heard of that before.
So for today’s bible study, instead of me coming to you with a bible study excerpt with a lot of scripture, I wanted to dig deeper into this concept of submitting to God’s rhythm.
How Do You Submit to God’s Music?
I started thinking about the type of influences that are in our life. Think of it this way, if you go to a party, or the club, or a wedding, and there are a bunch of cool people on the dance floor, and you’re one of them, you could choose to go out there on the dance floor and do your own thing.
Let’s say the Cha-Cha Slide is on, but you decide that you’re going to do the Macarena. You’re going to do your own thing, not be influenced by the music, and stay in your zone.
That’s perfectly fine. You may get attention, people may wonder what you are doing, you might be ignored or you might be laughed at, but in your mind, you don’t care. You’re in your own rhythm.
But what if the point here is not necessarily to stand out?
What if we aren’t meant to be the loudest one that is the most obvious?
What if the point is to make sure that you are submitting to the music?
Have You Been Dancing to Your Own Beat?
You’ve been dancing to your own music, but by the end of the Cha-Cha Slide, you might start to think it would be a lot easier and more fun if you were in rhythm with everyone else.
You might become a better dancer if you submit to the Cha-Cha Slide. This is so silly but work with me here.
If we are going to be submitting to the beat of God’s music, I feel like it’s best to surround ourselves with people and things and influences that are also dancing to the beat of His drum.
Because then we can easily assimilate. You find yourself actually enjoying some time in prayer, telling people what you’re thankful for, and sharing ways that you can be prayed for.
You slip into a rhythm, a dance flow, a beat when you are surrounded by biblical godly influences. That is the start to submit to God’s music.
Whether you are in a small group at your church, having daily devotionals with your family, praying with your husband, or going through a faith-based book with a girlfriend, these are examples of surrounding yourself with influences that are going to help you grow closer to God.
Now if you take this concept, but you pluck yourself out of that particular dance floor and drop yourself back into a different one, you’re still trying to submit to God’s music. To His rhythm.
You’re going to pray, do what’s right, be more generous than greedy, think of others before yourself, be willing to be anonymous instead of showy.
You’re trying to dance to that beat because it honors God and you want to live a godly life.
Can You Change God’s Music?
But all around you, what are people dancing to? They might be dancing to “you step on everyone else to get ahead” or “you cut corners and lie just a little because no one will ever know”.
You see these people, but you keep dancing. You might see another dancer grooving to “no one will ever know if I do this one little thing, like flirting with someone even though I’m married”.
They’re all dancing to their own beat, they’re dancing to culture’s song, and you’re just trying to keep up with God. Well, what’s going to happen?
Eventually, you are going to submit to their dance, you’re going to submit to the beat that they dance to, and you’re no longer going to have that strong foundation.
Why? Because when you surround yourself with people and influences, whether you know it or not, you will eventually submit to the beat that they are dancing to.
And I’m not saying that in order for us to remain godly people, and continue in our growth with the Lord, that we should never be with people who aren’t following the Lord. Not at all.
When submitting to God’s music, God calls us to be witnesses.
God calls us to step into these places and love them, and love them so well that they understand that God’s love is pouring through us.
But if you’re surrounding yourself with media and posts and opinions that are causing more and more problems and not leading you closer to God, maybe its because you have been surrounding yourself with culture.
And what the world says is going to bring you peace and stability and happiness and joy and calm, is a lie. Satan, the enemy, wants you to believe that the world can solve your problems.
That you have within yourself the strength to achieve whatever you set your mind to, that you can brush God aside and still get to the top of your dreams.
And what God may be telling you, because He has been telling me this, is that we need to make sure that in order for us to stay on the same rhythm, beat, and dance move as God, we need to be putting in our minds and ears and mouths, things that are influenced by Biblical teaching.
Are You In Church?
I know it’s weird because people often aren’t having face-to face church right now, so are you watching it live? Do you have a journal that you pray with?
Have you told a friend an area that they can pray for you in? Have you surrendered all these secret sins that you might be dealing with? Have you dealt with all of your issues from the past or are you harboring them?
Do you need to forgive someone? Or do you need to ask for forgiveness? Carrying all of this extra weight is just going to weigh us down and it’s wasting energy.
God only wants us to dance with Him. He only wants us to dance to what He is asking us to do. Just roll with what He is asking you to do and not what the other influences in your life are asking of you.
And if you aren’t sure what God wants you to do, you don’t know what’s godly or what’s obedient, the first step is to open your bible and pray.
Go to a book of the Bible that may be inspiring to you, or perhaps one that your pastor mentioned a couple of verses from.
And if you still don’t know where to start, I’m not trying to do a shameless plug here, but we have written bible studies specifically with the intent of reaching people who want to dig deeper with the Lord and don’t know where to start.
Final Thoughts: Submit to God’s Music
Think about submitting to God’s music, think about submitting to God’s drum beat, and wherever you are positioning yourself, that’s where you are going to start dancing.
Make sure that there’s more influence from God than from the world. And you will eventually learn how to dance with God instead of looking like the world and feeling empty.
xoxo
