Listening for life

Chris Bolinger Nov. 21, 2022

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"I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly."

—John 10:9–10

Baby, life's what you make it
Celebrate it

—Talk Talk

Music has always been my primary conduit to God.

When I sat down to write a devotion about the topic of life for my book 52 Weeks of Strength for Men, I thought of song lyrics. And lyrics from Talk Talk songs — such as "It's My Life," "Life's What You Make It," and "Living in Another World" — kept popping into my head. These lyrics didn't seem overtly Christian, but they touched on Christian themes.

Intrigued, I decided to find out more about Talk Talk's lead singer and primary songwriter, Mark Hollis. When I found this blog post by Bradley Birzer, the director of American Studies at Hillsdale College, my devotion practically wrote itself.

During the spring of his freshman year in college, Birzer — a "proud agnostic and skeptic" at the time — was captivated by the cover art on Talk Talk's The Colour of Spring LP and decided to buy it. He couldn't make out some of the lyrics, and the LP had no lyric sheet, but the "intensity and mysticism of the music" moved him and inspired him to "understand the sacred." The following winter, he came back to the Catholic faith.

A few months later, Birzer found the album's lyric sheet, and he sobbed. "The lyrics were even better and more Christian than I had guessed," he writes in the blog post, "and so much of my life — the good, the bad, the misunderstood — came together in that moment. At that point in my life, nothing could have seemed more beautiful or more perfectly timed."

Like Birzer, I've cried when reading the lyrics to a song or the words to a familiar hymn. I've had to fight back tears when singing parts of choral masterpieces such as Handel's Messiah and Brahms' Requiem. Music, especially vocal music, can connect me to God in a way that I can't fully explain, and it brings me closer to the abundant life that Jesus promises his followers.

But it doesn't do that for everyone, because not everyone is wired—or wired to God—the way that I am.

As leaders, we have a great deal of influence on the lives of those we lead. God calls us to use that influence to point people to Him.

To be effective in that calling, we need to understand what resonates most with our audience. We start by listening to them, actively and intently. That listening draws us closer to them.

Just as listening to God draws us closer to Him.

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Chris Bolinger is the author of three men’s devotionals – 52 Weeks of Strength for Men, Daily Strength for Men, and Fuerzas para Cada Día para el Hombre – and the co-host of the Throwing Mountains podcast. He splits his time between northeast Ohio and southwest Florida. Against the advice of medical professionals, he remains a die-hard fan of Cleveland pro sports teams. Find him at mensdevotionals.com. Learn More »

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