how to change your focal length: part 6

"It is good to praise the Lord and make music to your name, O Most High, proclaiming your love in the morning and your faithfulness at night, to the music of the ten-stringed lyre and the melody of the harp." - Psalm 92:1

In the last post, we were looking at how singing praise (tehilla) can change the atmosphere and bring Heaven straight into a situation.

Your voice is a powerful instrument, even if it isn't all that strong. It draws you up and out of your heart, and the realness of you then connects with the Holy Spirit, allowing him to move.

Another language of praise, another way to change our focal length and change the air around us, is to play a musical instrument. The Bible calls this zamar praise, and the word (used 44 times in the Old Testament) means 'to play', particularly by plucking strings or by striking a stringed instrument.

Stringed instruments all work because of tension. The ends of each string are pulled tight until the string and the wood match their natural resonance - a harmonic sound that brings the best frequencies out of the natural structure of the musical instrument.

It's this resonance that we're looking for when playing any musical instrument in the Spirit, and it doesn't matter whether it's strings, woodwind or something you hit. There's always a resonance for zamar praise to change the atmosphere.

I love playing woodwind instruments, particularly the recorder. What I'm looking for whenever I do that is that very natural, deep, prophetic connection with what God is saying - it's a bit like playing in tongues or prophesying with an instrument. You bring the resonance of what God is saying into the room through the language of music, expressed creatively in you.

Zamar praise changes our focal length because it prophesies into the room and lifts the temperature. It doesn't just change what you can see, it shifts what all of us can see.

That's why David could calm the a troubled King Saul in 1 Samuel 16. Zamar praise changed the atmosphere when an anointed musician played the harp in the king's presence. Never underestimate what you can do with a pure heart and a musical instrument.

So, this week's challenge: if you're a musician, spend some time with your instrument and try praying and prophesying through it. If that seems odd, try praying out loud at first, then silently with your instrument in your hand. Then transfer your inner voice to play through your fingers. Just watch what happens to the atmosphere.

If you're not a musician, or you don't play a musical instrument, don't panic. You can do this too - maybe by making a neat playlist of worship tracks and letting the sung praise of others fill the room.

Zamar skillfully changes not just your focal length but also shifts the spritual atmosphere, changing what all of us can see. So, what is God saying to you? What is God saying to us? Can you express it in language? Can you play it heart-to-heart-to-heart? 

Let's play it out and see what God does.