Be Careful, Little Ears, What You Hear

"Oh, be careful, little ears, what you hear...be careful, little ears, what you hear...For the Father up above is looking down with love. Oh, be careful, little ears, what you hear..."

Many of us learned this song as a child.

I remember thinking, How are you supposed to be careful about what you hear? Or what you see? I understood the verse about being careful what you SAY, but when you're five years old, your world is a pretty controlled environment.

It's taken forty years to get my answer.

It's a concept, one learned at an early age, that we should learn and meditate on as we get older and have to make those choices.

One I sometimes forget.

I think it's a song we should be singing as adults, every day as a reminder.

I was on my way home last week when I started flipping through the radio stations. I generally keep my radio tuned in to K-Love but sometimes I want to hear something else. If a country song isn't blatantly extolling the virtues of living for the devil, I will sing along at the top of my lungs.

This day, however, I came across Meghan Trainor's All About That Bass. Now I knew the song from a Kidz Bop CD (which cleans up lyrics of popular songs) and I loved the beat so I decided to listen to the unedited version. I'd heard it before so I knew this was a mistake but I did it anyway. (How many times do we say THAT?)

I felt a little convicted but figured, hey, it's just one time, and even though I knew it grieved the Spirit, it was only 3 minutes and then it was over.

Only it wasn't.

For six days in a row now, I've woken up to the song in my head. And not just any part, but the part where she curses. I've wanted to crawl under a rock.

The worst part was preparing the church for service Sunday with the song refusing to leave my head.

Then, in the middle of the sermon, when my husband said, "It's all about the faith," my mind started rapping again.

Now I truly get the song...be careful, little ears, what you hear. Not just because He's watching, but because He cares for us so much that he doesn't want the things we listen to or watch to separate us from the perfect love of Christ.

I pray now that with true repentance He will banish the song from its endless loop in my head.

I will be more careful what my little ears hear from now on.