Is your life whistling off tune?

A common experience for many who profess to follow Jesus is to intellectually understand portions of scripture, but get the living out of it wrong — sometimes widely so.

For example, you have probably read and heard preached this scripture:

“Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect,” Romans 12:2.

It’s easy to think you’re doing well with this exhortation since your life isn’t wildly off on tracking with the world. But it doesn’t have to be in order to find yourself copying “… the behavior and customs of this world.” In fact, it can be surprisingly easy to suddenly find yourself unconsciously steering toward the subtle pulls toward the world.

Here’s an example from Donald Grey Barnhouse of what I mean:

Some years ago, musicians noted that errand boys in a certain part of London all whistled out of tune as they went about their work. It was talked about and someone suggested that it was because the bells of Westminster were slightly out of tune. Something had gone wrong with the chimes and they were discordant. The boys did not know there was anything wrong with the peals, and quite unconsciously they had copied their pitch.

So we tend to copy the people with whom we associate; we borrow thoughts from the books we read and the programs to which we listen, almost without knowing it. God has given us His Word which is the absolute pitch of life and living. If we learn to sing by it, we shall easily detect the false in all of the music of the world.

If you don’t pay attention to what you’re taking in, even subtly — or especially subtly — you can find your life whistling off tune.

Scotty