Rejoice, And Be Glad

"My lover spoke and said to me,
"Arise, my darling,
my beautiful one, and come with me.

¹¹ See! The winter is past;
the rains are over and gone.

¹² Flowers appear on the earth;
the season of singing has come,
the cooing of doves
is heard in our land.

¹³ The fig tree forms its early fruit;
the blossoming vines spread their fragrance.
Arise, come, my darling;
my beautiful one, come with me." Song of Solomon 2:10-13

Yesterday morning in church, our pastor talked about something that just instantly made so much sense to me. I know I've read before and talked before about guarding the types of things we watch on TV or read, or see in the movies. I've put this into practice myself, and in fact, our whole family has. Our TV viewing is almost non-existent, where we used to watch TV every night of the week, it's now the rare night where we actually turn something on to watch. I think we're down to total, about four shows we enjoy watching. We tried starting to watch a new series a few months back, but then had a bad feeling that it was going to go in a direction we were uncomfortable with, so we just stopped watching it. Where once upon a time, I daresay, we were addicted to our TV viewing. We had to be home on certain nights to watch certain programs, the invention of the DVR was a revelation for us, but ever since then, our viewing has been slowly waning. Even the kids are watching less these days, and we've made it a point to watch their shows with them, and let them know the ones we don't want them to watch. It's funny, because shows I certainly never would have watched on my own, I find enjoying simply because we can watch them as a family, and enjoy the clean and safe entertainment.

The thing that my pastor mentioned very briefly though was to be careful of the type of shows you're watching a lot of. One mentioned was reality TV- particularly, the kind of reality TV where you're watching people and they're suffering. Or fighting or are angry or are struggling to accomplish something. I think of The Amazing Race, which we enjoy watching, but you know, I would never watch it with my children because generally, the people on there are not nice to each other. There is always horrible fighting and name calling and blame-placing, and often times, when we're finished watching an episode, I find myself glad that we're done watching, because then I'm not subject to enduring all that fighting anymore. "But Erika, it's geography, think of what the kids can learn about other cultures!" Yeah, every once in a while when they visit someplace exotic, I think that, and then the racers will say or do something awful. Like this last race, they were in China, and one of the teams was having bad luck, and the one girl turned to her partner and said flat out that China s*cked. Do I really want my children to hear that kind of talk? As much as we've enjoyed this show, I'm wondering if we'll even tune back into it next fall.

This totally isn't the direction I was headed today with my blogging, but we're really becoming careful about what we're taking in as entertainment as a family. If we spent a lot of our time watching all these reality shows, and watching all the negativity, where do you think that goes? The more we take in, the more it becomes a part of us, and how long will it be before some of that behavior becomes part of us? The verses above are an example of what we should be taking in. We should be taking in the glad, the positive, the Godly. When we watch TV it should be with a critical eye- would I watch this with Jesus? If Jesus were sitting right here in the living room with me, would he approve of my selection? I don't think that watching TV or movies is inherently bad, it's when we let them take over. And I also don't think that we are to spend every waking moment reading our Bibles or praying- I think that God approves of entertainment, and I think if we choose carefully, He approves of seeing our family sit down together with a bowl of popcorn to enjoy a movie. If we take in good positive entertainment, it can help us draw closer together as a family, and it can simply be fun. God has no problems with fun.

I want to rejoice and be glad. I want my heart to be full of positive things and full of joy. I don't want to spend my time in the evenings watching sad and depressing television. I don't want to always watch people fighting and arguing or even watching crime shows all the time. The more good I put in, the better. The more joy that goes in, the better. And as our pastor said yesterday, laughter is a fantastic thing- it's beneficial in more ways than one, and I just know that God loves to hear laughter. He loves to hear his children laughing together at something silly. I think God himself has a great sense of humor!

Obviously, this can all apply to any media. I love to read books, any and all, and I recently read a book for a book club that I really had a hard time reading because it was filled with stuff about witches and psychics, and while I know where I stand in my beliefs, and I also knew this was fiction, it still bothered me. It bothered me that in this particular book, something completely inanimate and man-made can be given "life" so to speak. (Think of a magic 8-ball, and what if people actually believed that toy spoke truth- that's how this book was, only with a different item.) I read the book to be able to contribute to the discussion, and I have to say, when I was finished with it I felt like I wasted my time reading it. That's making me think twice about doing the book club. I'll finish the season, but I think I may think twice about joining again, only because I don't have the final say in what the group reads. We all choose a book, and while some have been uplifting, others have been disturbing. It's the disturbing ones that I'm trying to stay away from.

All this to say that I am going to be even more mindful of what I take in. Especially when it comes to my children. Abigail is down to the last four days of school, and then I don't have to worry about the influences she is getting from school, so why do I want to just let her watch and read whatever? I think over the next several months, year maybe, our family is going to grow in leaps and bounds together, and I just feel that right now, we need to be very careful about what we're letting in on a regular basis. Oh, I have no doubt that we'll likely watch a movie or read a book that later on, we'll wish we hadn't, but I think that if, for the most part, we can be on guard, our spiritual life is going to really start to wake up and soar. And that's our goal. We want to rejoice as a family. We want to be uplifting to each other and to those around us. And I like to think that goal is entirely possible.