I have been listening to my George Winston channel on Pandora this morning. Music has such power to affect my feelings. It can help me connect more deeply with myself and my experiences emotionally, but its influence is so strong it can also hijack my emotions. This can be profoundly disturbing when I want to experience my emotions, but it can be a drug of preference to escape unwanted feelings. Sometimes we need this medication to provide a rest from our life struggles, but it can easily become an addiction, helping us avoid the unhappy truth our hearts are speaking to us, a truth we must work through if we are to heal.
It is not only music which can be the escape hatch. Many folks use television, sports, hobbies, internet, and even friends for this purpose. Still more dangerously, I can use meditation, spiritual reading, ministry, and church as a powerful narcotic to avoid rather than connect to my soul… so that I not only feel good, but feel right for feeling good. When we pick and choose Bible verses to provide quick, simple solutions to deep heart issues, we may be using the Bible itself as the great escape, “talking” ourselves into different surface feelings and missing the chance to experience fundamental transformation. Often these pat answers we offer one another are simply unconscious reflections of our culture’s values which have shaped our view of Scripture. Instead of using the Bible to reveal and heal our hearts, we can use it to wall off our hearts. I know this was a huge block to my own spiritual growth–(mis)using God’s word against my true self. (more on this later)
Janathan Grace Reflections 
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