Silver Chords
Numbers 10:2, 9-10a
“Make two silver trumpets. Of hammered work you shall make them, and you shall use them for summoning the congregation and for breaking camp. … And when you go to war in your land against the adversary who oppresses you, then you shall sound an alarm with the trumpets. … On the day of your gladness also, and at your appointed feasts and at the beginnings of your months, you shall blow the trumpets over your burnt offerings and over the sacrifices of your peace offerings.”
God has placed within our satchel of spiritual armaments two silver trumpets, as it were, one for a benediction and one for a convocation, one for the morning and one for the evening, one for our conflicts and one for our peacetimes, one for our anguish and one for our gladness, one for our petitions and one for our thanksgiving—a prayer for all seasons.
I’m ashamed to think how frivolous I can be in my praying from day to day. How powerless and listless the very act can often seem. How the difference between shooting off silent, unspoken thoughts to God and getting lost in my own thoughts is not always apparent. How the extravagant freedom I’ve been given to come boldly before the Throne of Grace at any time, without making a pilgrimage to a temple or seeking the ear of a priest or interacting with some tactile, tangible relic, has made communion with God liberating on the one hand but desensitizing on the other. That is, when I pray with my mind only, without folding my hands and closing my eyes and getting on my knees etc., my prayers can easily fade out in a rush of thoughts like a candle in the breeze.
What if we kept a silver trumpet on our dining room tables and passed it around with our families before and after every meal, not because we need some magical instrument for reaching heaven but because we could use tangible help to keep focused? Whether you add that or not, resolve to think of prayer as the most sacred instrument you’ve got. Think of it today as a silver trumpet, forged in the fires of Mt. Calvary, by our great High Priest Who readies to hear your call and meet your need at the sound of your trumpet song.