Play Your Notes

I have a private group on Facebook entitled. “Dr. Dan’s Bible Reading Group.” The 365 members read one chapter each day and some post impressions, feelings, applications, and related prayer requests. Most don’t post but only benefit from the postings of others. Last week we read 1 Corinthians 14 and verse 8 captured my attention, and sent me back to my teen-age years, “If the trumpet makes an uncertain sound, who will prepare for battle?” When I was thirteen years old, my  musical mother (she played the snare drum in her High School band) decided I should learn to play an instrument. We discussed the possibilities.  I really wanted to play Saxophone, but she said I wouldn’t be allowed to play that in a church service.  Same reason for a Trumpet. Remember, this was the 1950s.  We settled on a Trombone and a teacher was hired.  I began to envision playing at church, or on stage, or maybe even in the Baylor University Golden Wave Band.  I would have preferred dreaming about the Fighting Texas Aggie Band, but that wasn’t allowed in our very conservative Baptist family. During the first lesson, my teacher taught me the positions on the slide and the sounds made by each position.  Before the next lesson, I learned to play by ear, and performed a rough version of, “Whispering Hope” for him.  He promptly quit, the Trombone went to my closet, and I went back to baseball practice. Music was an uncertain territory for me and the notes just didn’t come out of the horn like they were supposed to.  Lesson learned:  Play the notes God gives you with certainly and leave the uncertain notes to someone else.