Missouri State Capitol, Jefferson City, view from the Carnahan Gardens.
Yes, I'm back after a busy winter and spring. One of the many highlights of our current journey has been sounding the shofar for the Community Call to Prayer that meets in the rotunda of the Missouri State Capitol the first Sunday afternoon of each month. Believe me, I never saw this coming!
A few years ago, after attending Ministries of New Life's Convocation and seeing and hearing the shofars, Randy surprised me with a beautiful shofar from Israel that is made from the horn of an antelope. I pictured it in a past blog. Since then, I have shown it and blown it for the children at Sunday School and once or twice for the Eagle's prayer meetings. So when I attended the January Community Call to Prayer at the Capitol and Lana, the Coordinator, asked if anyone could blow the shofar, my friend and prayer partner Gloria pointed to me and said, "Karla can."
"Whaaaat?????" I declined that day.....it wasn't my shofar....it was a ram's horn....I was not prepared....IT WAS THE ROTUNDA OF THE MISSOURI STATE CAPITOL and IN FRONT OF PEOPLE I DID NOT KNOW FOR GOODNESS SAKE! But my conscience bothered me and I promised Lana I would pray and practice. Since that Sunday afternoon in January, I have practiced (some--never enough!) and I have been studying and learning why it is important (actually, a command-"Praise him with the sound of the trumpet (shofar): praise him with psaltery and harp." Psalm 150:3) to sound the shofar...AND, with the purchase of a ram's horn, Randy has joined me!
Here are a few of the insights I am learning about the shofar:
Did you know that there are at least 72 mentions of the shofar in the Blue Letter Bible? According to Google, there are 118 references of the trumpet in the King James Version of the Bible.
Did you know that God has a shofar?!!!
1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 says, "For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a rousing cry, with a call from one of the ruling angels, and with God's shofar; those who died united with the Messiah will be the first to rise; then we who are left still alive will be caught up with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and thus we will always be with the Lord." (CJB)
Of course, God's shofar is not just any shofar. Jewish traditions hold that Yehovah-Yireh kept one of the ram's horns from the ram He provided when Abraham offered Isaac as a sacrifice. Jews believe that God made one ram's horn into a shofar and sounded it on Mount Sinai when He gave Moses the Ten Commandments.
"And it came to be, on the third day in the morning, that there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud on the mountain. And a voice of a shofar was very strong, and all the people who were in the camp trembled." Exodus 19:16
Can you imagine how it must have been to experience God's shofar blast coming from that mountain? It must have grown louder and louder, resonating throughout the Israelite's camp - like the warning sirens in our cities today.
It is believed that God will use the other ram's horn to sound when He announces Yeshua Jesus' second coming.
That is all the time I have today, but I will leave you with this thought:
All of us are in some kind of a battle or another. The enemy of God is our enemy and that enemy does not want us serving our Yehovah Elohim. As Nehemiah said in chapter 4 verses 19 and 20,
"And I said to the nobles, and to the deputy rulers, and to the rest of the people, 'The work is great and large, and we are separated far from one another on the wall. In whatever place you hear the voice of the shofar, join us there. Our Elohim (God) fights for us.'"
Comments