Earbuds.

Sorry fellow millennium kids. Turns out our parents were right. Remember when you used to hear your mother tell you, "Garbage in garbage out"? You wanted to kick her and explain thoroughly how you are the exception and how just because you were listening to a rap song about a man stealing an Escalade doesn't mean you are going to grow up to steal an Escalade. Yeah, I'm with you. 

I'll never forget jamming out in my pink polka-dot room listening to "This is Why I'm Hot" on my boom-box. It feels like it was yesterday when my dad marched up to my room and said, "Brianna! Turn off that song, 'I'm hot, I'm hot I'm hot I'm hot!'" Wrong lyrics dad, but who am I to judge that. {Side note: I used to think the song "Can't Touch This" said "Kingchesters".....Please don't ask me what a kingchester is because I do not know...} 

So, at Auburn I live in a wonderful old house that is about a 15 minute walk to campus. Just long enough for your mom to tell you that you don't need a bike. Not bitter. Anyways, I always listen to music on the way to class. Ninety percent of the time it's a playlist I made on Spotify that is sheer gold. Last week though I was told about a podcast I needed to listen to. It's funny because I didn't even know, but on an i-phone we have a permanent app titled, "Podcasts." Low and behold, they are all free too. 

So instead of my usual playlist, I popped in my earbuds and listened to Louie Giglio. Sure I could only hear 15 minutes of it, but it turns out it's a 15 minute walk home after class too. Crazy how that works. So after two different walks to class, that was a sermon. 

I was suddenly struck with the fact that so much knowledge was flowing right into my head from my earbuds. I was so encouraged just walking to class because Louie Giglio was chilling in my ears. It got me thinking about earbuds. They are such a small thing but how cool is it that they can be used to glorify God and how scary that so often we use them for harm.

We so often talk about glorifying God with our bodies and our actions and yes that is all well and good, but have we ever thought about the small gifts in life God gives us? Earbuds. Auxiliary cords for our cars. What if we used these small blessings to pour the word of God back into our lives. 

I'm not saying every single time I walk to class or drive somewhere I am going to listen to a sermon. To be honest when I'm on the way to formal I'm not gonna say, "LET'S GET PUMPED! CRANK UP THAT TIMOTHY KELLER SERMON!" No no. That's when my good friend Kid Cudi comes in. But, I am saying that if we purposed to use the materialistic gifts God has blessed us with for a more beneficial purpose, we will begin to see growth in our spiritual lives. 

Whether we want to give our parents the credit or not, they were right. When we laugh at movies that insult the Lord and no red flag goes off in our head, that's an issue. I may not steal an Escalade, but if all I fill my head with is crude words and objectifying phrases, that stuff slowly seeps into my soul. Sounds dramatic, but I'm serious. The more we listen to that, the more we become okay with the idea of those things and that my friends is a dangerous place to end up.

I was reminded by a friend the other day of this quote: "Beware of what you dwell on, for that you shall surely become."

I don't care if you're 14 or 45 years old, what you dwell on, what you spend your time watching or listening to, that is what you will become. I challenge you to ask yourself what you dwell on. What do you laugh at when you watch T.V.? What songs do you know every word to? 

Let's challenge one another to live in the world without becoming like the world. Let's use things like earbuds to encourage our souls. Let's use them to challenge our spiritual walk with God. It may not be comfortable at first and it may take some reorganization, but oh friends it is so worth it. 

“Radical obedience to Christ is not easy... It's not comfort, not health, not wealth, and not prosperity in this world. Radical obedience to Christ risks losing all these things. But in the end, such risk finds its reward in Christ. And he is more than enough for us.”-David Platt

Satisfying a Craving

Ask me where I will be in five years and come up with an answer. Got it? Great. Now send me a personal message with that answer because I could use all of the help I can get. I graduate from Auburn in December 2015...a lump in my throat just developed as I was typing that. I have two more semesters until I am a graduate from college....no more school....ever. Okay ew. It looks worse every time I write it.

I don't want to graduate early. Mainly because I'll miss running into random fraternity houses dressed in banana suits while wearing roller-skates...also because I have no clue what my future holds. Annnnd now the lump in my throat is back.

I think now that it is 2015 it is finally hitting me. This is the year I graduate. Next year I will be done being a student and quite frankly, that scares the crap out of me. It makes me anxious. And the more I stress about it the more I have begun to realize how much of my joy and fulfillment I put in my future.

Will my job make me happy? Will it be that job that I have always wanted? Will I live at home in Birmingham or will I move to L.A.? Will I finally be discovered, become a famous actress making millions of dollars, buy a boat and move to Europe? All plausible options.

I seek to find my joy and fulfillment in what my future looks like. I seek to find my joy and fulfillment in the things of the world. It's no wonder I am left anxious and with stress zits.

I have this visual of God standing in front of me, waving his arms around. The entire time he is yelling, "HEY! Brianna! I am your joy! I am the only one who can calm your anxious heart! Stop stressing and come to me!" Meanwhile I am leaning to the left and the right of him, trying to see what the world has to offer.

Every day Christ is there, waving us down and wanting us to come to HIM.  What a waste of time for us to think the things of the world will give us that peace we all so desperately desire. The moments I focus on HIM instead of where I will be in five years, are the moments my heart is calm.

I'm not saying I'm never going to stress about my future. I will. I'm human and I'm a girl so that combination sets me up for failure. However, my prayer is that when I am anxious about my future, I will be slapped in the face with the hard realization that I am in sin. Not trusting Christ is sin. Not laying my anxiety at the foot of the cross is sin. Plain and simple.

The world is kind of a screwed up place and when we start turning to it for our joy we are setting ourselves up for disappointment. The peace that the Lord gives is what we all so desperately crave.

2015 is going to be a year of trust. Let me rephrase that. 2015 is going to be a year of me constantly praying that I learn to trust. I am choosing this year to take advantage of the perfect peace Christ offers me daily. I am choosing to satisfy my craving with the only one who can, Christ.

"God cannot give us happiness and peace apart from himself because there is no such thing." - C.S. Lewis