Music and Worship

I love listening to music.  I have memories of my parents listening to their records, and then my older siblings enjoying the music of our time.  Eventually I became an avid music listener.  Everytime we would ride our family car the radio would be on.  When my parents were not watching tv, they were listening to music.  It eventually passed on to us.  If we were not watching tv, we were listening to music.  When "Walkman" was invented, we each had one.
I just loved listening to music.  I would buy records of songs I heard on the radio, and kept my personal collection.  When cassette tapes were invented, I bought them.  When CD's came into the picture, I would buy them.  Even when I became a Christian I would have a personal collection of Christian contemporary music.
My personal preference through the years became Jazz.  But I enjoyed Soul, Motown, Pop music of our time.  Almost all music from A to Z I listened to them.

Which is probably why when I'm tired, when I need a break, I usually run to music.  I have a collection of the songs I used to listen to during my teenage and young adult years, and I would listen to them again.  Sometimes Jazz, sometimes 70's pop and soul music.  I would just sit down and listen to music.  It would bring me back in time, my younger years, and sort of relax me.
I love listening to music.  It's my R&R, my time of relaxation.  I guess you can say that it is my refuge when I'm tired, when I need to relax.

But it's not my ultimate refuge.
Psalms 18:1-2 (NIV)
¹

I love you, O LORD, my strength.

²The LORD is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer;

my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge.

He is my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.

There is something much deeper than my enjoyment of music, that serves as a foundation of my heart - worship.  Worship is not singing.  It's recognizing who someone or something is in your life, and you express it.  For me it is my God.  And sometimes my worship is expressed through music, or singing.  But not all the time.
But I realize that, inspite of my love for my music, and my tendency to listen to it when I seek relaxation or rest, my heart runs to another tower, another refuge - and that is my God.
Yes, sometimes it takes a nice contemporary Christian song.  maybe a worship song sung during our Sunday services.  Sometimes I listen to Christian Jazz, hymns and songs jazzed up.
But my real refuge is God Himself.

And I have to be reminded, time and time again, by the Lord, that I am to take refuge in Him.  For it is only in Him that I can have real rest, real peace.
Listening to music may temporarily give me some form of rest, but for me to face the life this world throws at me, I need to bow down and worship.
And that's why I thank God that He has revealed Himself to me as my Rock, my fortress and Deliverer, and i can take refuge in Him always!

I love music.  But I worship my God.  He is my Rock, Fortress and Deliverer.  And in Him I can rest.