Football games are so much fun! The people, the snacks, the sounds and the game.
After attending several home football games this fall I’ve become familiar with the same sounds that the band plays at each game. At the last game, though, I heard different sounds. And I wondered, “What’s that sound?” I looked around the stadium. And then I knew. A different band was playing. The visiting team had brought their band with them and they were playing very loudly on the other side of the field. So loudly, in fact, that it was difficult to hear those familiar tunes from our own home team band. A fan near me shouted out to that visiting band, “Are you trying to play louder than our band?!” I quietly agreed with him. I had thought the same thing, but I’m not one for shouting. I struggled to listen to our home band play as I tried not to hear that other band. After all, the other band was playing music that I didn’t know and this was our field. Our own band should be heard loud and clear.
Then I thought about how we so often hear things that contradict what we know so well. Those sounds can be so loud. And I’m sure people mean well, just like that visiting band. But meaning well and being loud doesn’t make something right or true. Things that contradict the Bible or just what is true, like people’s own idea of how the world came to be or people’s own definition of marriage and so many other ideas today, are just sounds. We hear a lot of sounds out there so it’s important to know what is true and to spend time reading the Bible so that it will be familiar to us, like the band’s music at a home football game.
So, next time I’m hoping that the visiting team doesn’t bring their band with them. Sorry visiting team. I just want to hear those familiar sounds of my hometown team’s band.
Lori Schulz 