Keeping Tapes Is A Matter of Pride

I recently finished reading a book entitled “Worldliness: Resisting the Seduction of a Fallen World.” It’s a series of essays by a variety of pastors compiled by C.J. Mahaney. It deals with the subject of “the often subtle presence” of worldliness in the heart of a Christian.

There’s discussion about and biblical resolution for the influence the world has on a believer through the media, music, and possessions. There’s also chapter on materialism. This deals with two issues: the sinful obsession with accumulating possessions and allowing those possessions to displace God as the object of worship in your life.

“Worldliness” explores how Christians are to live lives worthy of the gospel and engage a fallen world, without being conformed and ultimately seduced by the system of this world.

The book didn’t have a lot theology that was new to me but it did help me revisit some of the lessons I had learned while taking the Crown Financial course last year.

The idea of “want versus need” was something that I had kind of drifted away from but the book brought me back to. Also I needed to be reminded about the danger of displacing God in my life by putting too much value in my possessions and the achievements linked to them. Here’s an area in my life where I had to apply that principle.

For over a year now I have been transferring some programs I taped over a period of 10 years called “Rock & Roll Rewind.” These are programs that review the artists and pop music I have in my CD collection. Each program featured music on a specific subject, from a certain period of time, or recorded were by specific artists. I researched the music history, put together the song lists, wrote the scripts and produced the tapes. I put a lot of time and emotion into them; especially the programs featuring Christmas music.

The shows were my creative outlet for nearly a decade. I even continued to record them after I moved to Kentucky. They are personal time capsules for me. I made 36 programs in all. The last ones were recorded in 2001.

Unfortunately they were all recorded on cassette tapes which have not withstood the test of time. The tapes started to deteriorate a couple of years ago. Which is why I decided to start converting them over to CD. I didn’t want to lose these recordings. I consider them part of my creative legacy.

So now I’m at a place where I have all but 5 shows converted. This brings me to the issue of placing too much value in one of my possessions.

After I read the chapter on materialism in “Worldliness” it brought to my mind the fact that despite having converted some of them to CD nearly a year ago I still continued to hold on to the original Rewind tapes. I asked myself “why?” Why didn’t I just throw them away after the CD was completed? After some soul searching and prayer I realized it was because of personal pride.

I am very proud of the Rewind programs. They haven’t impressed a whole lot of people over the years (some have liked them but not many) but they mean a lot to me. In my mind if I discarded the “master tapes” and something happened to the only copy I had (the CD) my work would be lost forever. Essentially I want my Rewind work to last “forever” or as long as I can make it last.

This is a form of trying to play “God” for myself. The Bible tells us that only those treasures we store up in heaven will last forever. Nothing in this world is going to survive. All of it will eventually be destroyed. Some of it sooner than later but it will all go away.

Holding on to my Rewind master tapes is a denial of this Biblical principal and truth. It would be different if the tapes were my only copy. I mean there’s nothing wrong to want the recordings as part of my personal memories. But keeping the master tapes in effort to create a false sense of eternally securing the existence of my work is a sin; a sin that falls under the broad category of pride.

I don’t want to put my hope or my assurance of “eternal security” into anything other than God and the saving grave of His son, Jesus Christ. The gospel is my legacy.

I decided I’m going to “dematerialize”. I’m going to start discarding things that I’ve been holding onto for prideful reasons. So today before I left for work I gathered the Rewind master tapes that I already have on CD and I threw them in the trash can.

This may seem like it’s a bit extreme to some of you. But I must tell you the concept of depending on nothing but God for the preservation of who I am as a person is extremely biblical. If you’re intrigued by what I’ve written or at all interested in what I’ve learned about materialism I suggest you pick up a copy of “Worldliness” by C.J. Mahaney at your local Christian book store. Read it and I promise you that you’ll see your possessions differently… from God’s point of view.