Oh Be Careful Little Ears

With the Lenten season upon us, many Christians have been mulling over something in their life that they should give up for 40 days. The act of fasting from something worldly is meant to bring our focus to the Lord and our walk with Him. In our modern society, we are inundated with so many temptations, addictions, and all around time wasters that aren’t modern vices at all. There is not much difference between the things that interfere with our spiritual lives in today’s world and the world Adam and Eve inhabited. The devil sought out Eve to introduce sin and the enemy is still hard at work, only now he is right at our fingertips every time we open our screens. The power in selecting a podcast, roadtrip soundtrack, instagram reel, etc… is the power to choose what we allow to let into or lives and rewire our brains. Equally as important to something we might give up to grow as Christians is taking accountability for what we choose to take in.

The content we consume during those mindless, unfocused moments of waiting in line or stuck in traffic has a way of becoming our main focus. During the height of the #metoo movement, many famous faces were outed as being creeps. Certain industries that notoriously turned a blind eye to misogyny and sexual abuse in the past were being held liable for protecting people in power who had deeply hurt others. Some of the most shocking allegations were the ones brought to light against Matt Lauer. I think Lauer’s actions were particularly disturbing because this was a man that America invited into our homes every morning when we turned on the Today Show. This was the man America was with when our world changed and he updated us on the 9/11 terrorist attacks. We trusted him. Technology is like a vampire, and we are ultimately responsible for who and what we invite in.

We are so inundated with technology and endless options for how we consume our content that we become numb to what an important responsibility it actually is to select that content. We stress the importance of educating our children on growing up in world where they can access unlimited information whether it is true or false, but we forget that as adults, we need to actively pause and make sure all the noise we are taking in is rooted in the Truth. I am a lover of almost all music and as a millennial, still hold a fondness for the pop-punk and emo bands from my teenage years. Recently though, I realized that what might be nostalgic background noise on the drive to school for me were lyrics being repeated to my children in the same form as the worship songs we listen to. Looking in the rearview mirror and seeing my kindergartener passionately singing a blink-182 song she had no business singing was a not so gentle reminder of my God-appointed duty as her mother to protect what her little ears hear to the best of my ability.

“A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.“

-Luke 6:45

An interesting thing about children is how adaptable they are. This is both a good and bad thing. I can usually tell who my girls have been hanging out with or what show they’ve been binging on Netflix based on the way they are speaking. For example, when Lola started school this year she also started calling me (and everyone else) “dude” often enough to the point it makes me wonder how many times a day her teacher hears this in their classroom. While this particular expression is innocent enough, we are the company we keep and it has alerted me to what my six year old and even myself are hearing on a daily basis. Are we constantly hearing curse words, gossip (guilty), negative talk, and therefore constantly absorbing speech that pulls us away from our relationship with God?

Some of the best advice I still remember from a former professor goes along the lines of, “If you want to be a good writer, read good writing.” It’s effective because it’s simple and true. We have all heard the old adage “you are what you eat.” If you want to be healthy, you are going to fuel your body with foods that aid in its highest level of functioning. Spiritual food is no different. How are we feeding our souls? Scripture tells us to guard our hearts above all else because it is out of the abundance of the heart that our mouth speaks. We also must strive to guard our ears so that they are abundant with the Word.

Love, Molly

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