Dactrine and Covenants 25:10-13
10 And verily I say unto thee that thou shalt lay aside the things of this world, and seek for the things of a better.
11 And it shall be given thee, also, to make a selection of sacred hymns, as it shall be given thee, which is pleasing unto me, to be had in my church.
12 For my soul delighteth in the song of the heart; yea, the song of the righteous is a prayer unto me, and it shall be answered with a blessing upon their heads.
13 Wherefore, lift up thy heart and rejoice, and cleave unto the covenants which thou hast made.

I have always had a great lover for music. I must attribute this to my childhood. There was always music playing – either my Dad was playing the piano or working on a song in his studio or siblings practicing instruments. I learned the trumpet but didn’t enjoy it. I was always prone to sing and that’s what I do. The scripture above is so interesting because we can see that music if done in the right way is a prayer unto God. Music is a form of worship and praise. I know that music has power to it. Movies are the best example that comes to my mind. Music can move us to tears or add to suspense and can even tell a story in and of itself. So how do we let music effect us? When I was about fourteen I got into the whole downloading free music scene. I had hundreds of mp3’s and I loved to find new music. The type of music really altered my mood, emotions, and the things I thought about. I didn’t realize those things till much later. A great changing point came when I was watching General Conference. I felt this strong feeling that I needed to delete all my music. My first reaction was – there’s no way! I love that stuff! But as I kept listening to conference I knew I needed to. So when I got home I deleted all that music from the computer and spent a long time without any set music for recreation. This brings up another good point. I feel there is a lot of good music out there. I think that it’s perfectly fine and probably healthy to have fun music that is sole to entertain. I also feel that it is so easy to cross the line into music that distracts us from feeling the spirit of God. I have really been thinking about this topic because I spent most of my day on Saturday getting music together for a dance. It was mainly hip-hop and the music was great for a lively and fun dance. I was so immersed in that music that I couldn’t get songs out of my head and it was multiple ones so my mind felt so cluttered. On Sunday I took a lot of time to ponder in the morning and really asses things in my life. I was moved by the sacrament hymn we sung and I felt the reassurance once again that Christ did Atone for my sins and the sins of the entire world. So today I found myself listening to music on my ipod and I found that I was more selective in my choice of music. Maybe you will too.