Inner Jukebox...

a humorous sampling of the childhood albums
stuck in my head that play on "random"

Back when I was a kid, I used to hang out at this pool hall and shoot pool. In the afternoons, when things were usually quiet because most people work, the jukebox would be quiet also as there was nobody there to put coins in it.  The interesting thing about jukeboxes, is that when all is quiet and no one has played anything recently, it will pick a random song in its library and just start playing it as if to say "Hello, I am still here!" On some occasions this can be quite startling, as you go from quiet to Metallica's "For whom the bell tolls" in nothing flat.

I have found over the years that I have an "inner jukebox" and it is most definitely set on "random". I have talked about this lovely feature that I have in a previous blog, wonderfully complex. However for sake of time I will give you a couple of examples, I am walking to my car after shopping at the grocery store when all of a sudden I start singing "A Horse with No Name" and though I find this to be a groovy song it isn't in my current amazon/itunes playlist.  Right now as I type this I have found that I am singing "Soft Kitty" from the t.v. show "The Big Bang Theory".  I have no idea why, I mean the t.v. is currently off as I find it too distracting when I am trying to think. I simply pick up songs, like some kind of sponge. At times it can be a little lame as I am currently dealing with some short term memory issues, I mean I can sing the old "Oscar Meyer Bologna" song but I can't remember where I put my keys 30 seconds before or my husband's name (that is always a fun one). My "inner jukebox" is filled with a plethora of exciting and often obscure music, so it keeps things interesting.

This morning when some random song, which of course the name eludes me at this present time, started playing in my head it got me shinily thinking of this verse that I recently read.  Well it actually got me thinking about the last part of a verse I recently read in 2 Corinthians 10:5 "...and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." That's when it hit me, this is actually an extremely hard thing to do. I mean think about that for a moment, how often do we actually "take captive every thought"? Though I try to do this, I am pretty sure that I fail this quite a bit.  However, I have noticed recently that I am getting a little better with my "random" selection of songs, in fact, a lot of the more inappropriate songs I used to listen to have found their way out of my internal playlist and that makes me feel like there is hope for me. Granted I can't really take credit for this, this has been an endeavor of prayer and behaviour modification, like changing the channel when certain songs come on the radio or changing the tune in my head to play something better or more beneficial. Philippians 4:8 is a great verse to memorize for "internal jukebox" modification, it says "Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."

On a side note, I did want to take a slight bunny trail and say that this post isn't me saying that "secular music" is bad, quite the contrary, this is me saying that for me certain songs mess with my "internal jukebox", play more frequently and at the most inapropriate times so for this reason I abstain from listening to them and try to take every thougth captive. Everyone has their struggles and this happens to be one of mine. I highly recommend reading Romans 14:1-23 for more on this topic.

 

Well I don't know if you have an "internal jukebox" set to "random" but if it is, I am glad I am not alone. I know that for the most part I love my "internal jukebox" as it keeps life exciting and ever changing, I just have to keep an eye on what I allow in the playlist.

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