A difficult decision
I just finished one of the most difficult tasks I've ever had to do in my life. This decision was over a year in the making. I got rid of all my illegal music.
Last year God convicted me very strongly about the volume of music I possessed that I'd never paid for. I had gotten caught up in the burn-a-CD frenzy that took many people by storm in the late 90s, especially the high school and college scene. I knew that getting my hands on a bunch of "free" music probably wasn't right, but it was sooooo easy, and I am so addicted to music that I just ignored any slight pangs of conscience. Back to last year: God really grabbed hold of my heart and made it clear I needed to get rid of it all. And I honestly had every intention of obeying. But every time I started to look through all the great music I had, and how much it all meant to me, and the memories I'd made with these songs, I just couldn't bear to do it. I felt guilty for a few weeks straight, but then the convicted feeling simply wore off. I compromised with my conscience and decided not to burn full CDs for people, just mixes if necessary. Although that eventually fizzled out as well, I did put my foot down a few times and refused to rip/burn a few CDs.
Then myTunes hit.
First let me explain iTunes. It's the Mac-based program that acts as a jukebox for all your music, and it connects to the iTunes music store, where you can download just about any song imaginable for $1, or and entire CD for $10. The best part of the program is the sharing feature, which allows any other computers on a local network to share each others' music by streaming it--in other words, I can listen to your music but I can't copy it, so it's all legal. (Un?)fortunately, another program, myTunes, quickly appeared that tapped the same network stream technology but allowed users to download any music off anyone's computer onto their own.
I was in heaven. I quickly filled up my hard drive with awesome tunes. I didn't even feel guilty I was so elated at how easy and fast it all was. Then God decided to "shut my party down."
The end to this story is that I started getting many signals and conscience pricks again, and this time I decided to obey. My mission right now is to learn to love God so that I can love other people. Yes, that's the order of things. I realized that, in order to love God, I have to listen to his prompting--and not just listen, but act on them--and change things in my life to enhance/allow my fellowship with Him. Well, my illegal music collection was the elephant in the room I was ignoring.
It was painful and difficult to delete 11.5 gigabytes of music files and throw away 70 CDs. I couldn't even look at the discs when I counted them for fear of losing my nerve. But now that it's over, I'm anxiously waiting for God to fulfill me. In the words of Shane and Shane, "You are better."
I'm about to find out.
Last year God convicted me very strongly about the volume of music I possessed that I'd never paid for. I had gotten caught up in the burn-a-CD frenzy that took many people by storm in the late 90s, especially the high school and college scene. I knew that getting my hands on a bunch of "free" music probably wasn't right, but it was sooooo easy, and I am so addicted to music that I just ignored any slight pangs of conscience. Back to last year: God really grabbed hold of my heart and made it clear I needed to get rid of it all. And I honestly had every intention of obeying. But every time I started to look through all the great music I had, and how much it all meant to me, and the memories I'd made with these songs, I just couldn't bear to do it. I felt guilty for a few weeks straight, but then the convicted feeling simply wore off. I compromised with my conscience and decided not to burn full CDs for people, just mixes if necessary. Although that eventually fizzled out as well, I did put my foot down a few times and refused to rip/burn a few CDs.
Then myTunes hit.
First let me explain iTunes. It's the Mac-based program that acts as a jukebox for all your music, and it connects to the iTunes music store, where you can download just about any song imaginable for $1, or and entire CD for $10. The best part of the program is the sharing feature, which allows any other computers on a local network to share each others' music by streaming it--in other words, I can listen to your music but I can't copy it, so it's all legal. (Un?)fortunately, another program, myTunes, quickly appeared that tapped the same network stream technology but allowed users to download any music off anyone's computer onto their own.
I was in heaven. I quickly filled up my hard drive with awesome tunes. I didn't even feel guilty I was so elated at how easy and fast it all was. Then God decided to "shut my party down."
The end to this story is that I started getting many signals and conscience pricks again, and this time I decided to obey. My mission right now is to learn to love God so that I can love other people. Yes, that's the order of things. I realized that, in order to love God, I have to listen to his prompting--and not just listen, but act on them--and change things in my life to enhance/allow my fellowship with Him. Well, my illegal music collection was the elephant in the room I was ignoring.
It was painful and difficult to delete 11.5 gigabytes of music files and throw away 70 CDs. I couldn't even look at the discs when I counted them for fear of losing my nerve. But now that it's over, I'm anxiously waiting for God to fulfill me. In the words of Shane and Shane, "You are better."
I'm about to find out.
posted by Seth at 6:35 PM
3 Comments:
You did the right thing. I know it doesn't help when you first have to delete all that stuff, but you did do the right thing.
With places like iTunes and MP3tunes.com there's really no need to pirate music. You can find plenty of cheap stuff all over the net that won't hurt your bank account. ^^
I confess that before I got married I downloaded illegal stuff. But after, my husband made me promise not to (and I can't break a promise I make) so now I don't. Instead I try to find cheap or open source/free alternatives.
It's not easy, but whoever said doing what's right was? xD If you're ever tempted to download something illegal, come talk to me. I can probably help you find a legal alternative! :D
wow, that is an honest step in a holier direction. I must say, I am very proud of you samuel.
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