A few weeks ago, I took a look at
the Top 20 albums list on Entertainment
Weekly, a list of the best selling music
in America today.The #1 album being sold was the new
CD by Young Jeezy called “Recession.”As I glanced downward, I noticed
that the #4 best selling album in the
country was Kid Rock’s “Rock and Roll
Jesus,” which caught my eye because I
noticed it has been on the Top 20 list now
for over four months straight.I went on Youtube to listen to a
few of the songs on these two albums
afterwards, and, as you can imagine, there
were a lot of messages that jumped out at
me right away.There was a song on Young Jeezy’s
album called “Hustlaz Ambition.”Early on in the track the rapper
says, “No one gives a (curse word), so
that’s why we crime wave.”In Kid Rock’s track “Amen,”
in which he criticizes the state of the
world today and he urges everyone for
religious tolerance (good for him), he
says “It’s a matter of salvation from
impatience up above…”(…not good for him).There are other songs on both
albums that have mixed messages when it
comes to religion and what the artists
believe about the country and the world,
too.
And
yet these two artists are selling their
albums like crazy, and we love listening
to them on iTunes, CDs, and the radio.I ask myself what it is about this
music that makes it so popular.Maybe it’s because the
songwriters don’t hold anything back
about what they feel, and maybe what they
feel is what we feel sometimes.Have I ever felt like no one cares
about me?Sure I have.Have you ever felt like there’s
no one who understands you or cares about
you?Maybe you’ve even felt like God
doesn’t understand you, or maybe even
that God doesn’t care.If you’ve ever felt like this,
that’s okay.We all have times where things
don’t go the way we plan them, or when
things go bad, or maybe even completely
horrible.And it’s during these times when
music like this really speaks to us.We might feel like Young Jeezy or
Kid Rock know us better than our friends,
our family, or even God.Like the songs say, we wonder if
anyone really does care about us, even
God.
During tough times in my life, I
try to remember that God Himself felt
abandoned, felt betrayed, and maybe even
like no one understood Him.In the Garden of Gethsemane, for instance, Jesus went by
Himself to pray to the Father the night
before He died, only to find His best
friends, His disciples, asleep (Matthew
26:45), when He had urged them to stay
awake.But despite feeling this way, was
Jesus actually not loved by His Father?Has God ever stopped loving anybody
who was in a rut?Of course not.God
never, ever stops loving us.Ever.Even when we may feel otherwise.These types of lyrics that so many
songs today push on us are completely
untrue.I wonder sometimes how many of
these songwriters and artists really even
care about what God is like, His love, and
what is really true in life.We should not let these trashy
lyrics absorb into our hearts and minds.No one said music is bad- in fact,
it can often express what’s inside us in
ways nothing else can- but we have to make
sure we filter what we hear.I’ll end with this beautiful quote by St. Paul from Romans
8:38-39, that I pray is a part of our
Christian filter, whatever we may
encounter: “For I am convinced that
neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor
rulers, nor things present, nor things to
come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth,
nor anything else in all creation, will be
able to separate us from the love of God
in Christ Jesus our Lord.”Sorry Kid Rock, this is what it’s
really about.
