If you were to ask my wife, I have a touch of OCD, and it blooms gloriously in the garden of my Pandora. Maybe it's the former DJ and the Radio/TV minor in me, or maybe it's something else. I don't know. I do know Pandora provides a thumbs up button and a thumbs down button to fine tune stations, and I use it. I get serious about it, much to my wife's amusement. As far as I'm concerned, if I have the tools to tweak the station, I should.
Sometimes it's frustrating. I understand certain musicality factors in how Pandora chooses what to play on a station, but I wish that they would add a few more options or parameters. For example, I have a station that plays classic Jesus Music and classic contemporary Christian music. When I say classic, I mean classic. But there's no way to make Pandora understand the era restrictions. So in the midst of music from the 70s and 80s that I grew up on, newer songs by the same artists or with a slightly similar sound are played. I finally gave up and extended the cut off to 1995, but everything newer than that gets a thumbs down. Period. I don't care how good it is. No, I don't care if it is Michael W. Smith. It's not one of his 1980s releases, it came out in 200? and doesn't belong on the classic station.
I can forgive and understand why Pandora feels I should like songs by the same artists who have managed to keep putting out music for 30 or 40 years. I just thumbs down, probably confuse the computer, and move on. But then out of the blue something weird happens. It happened yesterday. The same station I've been talking about played a song by Nelly. That one stumped me. It's not close to the era, Nelly does not sound like classic Russ Taff, Petra, Larry Norman, etc. He's not in the same neighborhood as the artists and bands on that station, and he's a secular artist being thrown in with nothing but Christian artists. The incongruity jarred me. If it had happened on my Christian Hip Hop station it would be closer to understandable, but in no stretch of the imagination did it belong on the station that attempted to play it before I had to waste one of my limited thumbs down on something that never should have happened. I shook my head and wondered what the Pandora system was thinking when it did that.
So what's the point? Sometimes the songs that are out of place are close. They are the same artist or sound similar or come close to what should be on a particular station but don't quite fit. Sometimes the wrongness is glaring. The latter frustrate me, because I don't think after all this time of fine tuning my stations that something so out of place should ever show up. Then I wonder how often I am like Pandora and cause the Holy Spirit to shake His head and wonder what I could have possibly been thinking with some action I took.
I surrendered my will and life over to the care of God. I committed to give Him control and the right to dictate the thoughts and actions that occur in my life, to fine tune me to play in harmony with His will and purpose. Some things that I throw in the mix may not really be bad. They may even fit in another station, at a different time and place. It's not that they are wrong as much as they just don't quite fit with the music He's playing then and there. That's fine tuning, as He nudges me to skip on to the next song and play something else.
But then there are times when I throw in a Nelly. The direction I go off on has nothing to do with God's genre, It's entirely me, the old me, and the difference is obvious. Those actions where, if witnessed, no one would see any aspect of Christ in me. No one would see or feel the love of God. They are secular, if not down right opposite of all God is trying to do in my life. In no way could they possibly fit or belong on any of God's stations in my life. It's a glitch in the program that causes the Holy Spirit to have to almost start from scratch rather than fine tune. It's ridiculous and never should happen. But it does,
The good thing is that God doesn't get angry when we go off program like that. If we will listen and not limit His thumbs downs we don't have to play the song through. He can put us back on track quickly. Today let us pay close attention to Him who calls the tunes and play what is pleasing to His ear. If we get off, let us be quick to repent, ask for forgiveness and let Him make the necessary adjustments to the music of our lives so that we can go through our day in harmony.
Today's Unshackled Echo was previously published on
January 28, 2016.
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