Don't Spare the Details

 Good Morning All,

Well, I figure if you've had a good Thanksgiving, half of you are travelling and the other half are still sprawled out in a food coma.  Actually, I always enjoy the leftovers more than the feast itself, as it's far too exciting and busy to take it all in the first time.  

You'll recall that we had our 'family' dinner last week to accommodate the kids, so I'm fully recovered now ....... and am in packing mode, as we leave this next Tuesday for our 4-week nostalgia/working and sightseeing trip.

But something very comforting caught my eye this last week as I was reading through a VERY long book of the Bible, Ezekiel.  If you haven't read it, strap yourselves in because it's (mostly) definitely not boring.

But my ears began to prick up, and a bit of comprehension started to set in when I finally got to Ezekiel 37. Keep in mind that Solomon’s original temple had been destroyed by Babylon so many years earlier. And yet God says to the prophet:

Ezekiel 37:26-27 “I will make a covenant of peace with them; it will be an everlasting covenant. I will establish them and increase their numbers, and I will put my sanctuary among them forever. My dwelling place will be with them; I will be their God, and they will be my people. Then the nations will know that I the Lord make Israel holy, when my sanctuary is among them forever.’”

Then, starting with chapter 40, God says, “Okay Zeke; get out your tape measure.” And for the next 8 chapters, the prophet is told to go and measure everything in detail, right down to the door jambs in the portico.

At first, I was thinking, Why? Why all this detail? Then I began to see that God was encouraging the man, assuring him that things WILL get better for Israel. It’s funny, but a thought flashed across my mind just then of an old movie I’d seen years ago. I can’t even remember now what it was, but I do remember one scene. Some men are trapped somewhere, and it looks like they may never get out of their predicament. But then one guy pops up and says, “You know what I’m going to do when I get home? I’m going to go down to the local diner and order up a cheeseburger.” Then he sets out to describe that cheeseburger, from the pickles, to the mustard and the sesame seeds on the bun. As he’s talking, the other men start to smile, and you can see the hope returning.

Sort of like Ezekiel, imagining that fantastic temple to come.

Now here’s where the analogy gets shaky and I need a good theologian to help me out. As I recall, Israel DID return to Jerusalem, and the temple WAS rebuilt, but ….. well ….. it just never matched the one Solomon had built. So does that mean God was stretching the truth when he described to Ezekiel what was coming?

Here's what I think: I believe what we’re seeing here is a reminder that all of our “exiles” are going to come to an end one of these days. And what waits for God’s children is something a whole lot better than a stone temple with precision doorjambs. It’s a place we call, “Heaven”, and it’s quite simply indescribable. 

But rather than losing ourselves in a fog of despair, we’re given glimpses of a place so wonderful, so magnificent, C.S. Lewis remarked that if we could see the actual reality of the place, we’d be killing ourselves to get there today.

God is the God of details, and Ezekiel, along with us, have been given a glimpse of those details, but in His infinite wisdom and mercy, we’re not made privy to the whole thing; not yet. Just as Jesus said to His disciples in John 16:12, “I have much more to say to you, but you can’t bear it now.”

Until that time of perfect revelation, let’s imagine the good things to come, knowing that our dreams can only reveal things up to a point.

As I’m stressing over packing, I have to stop and realize that the little details do matter. But they matter even more to my God, and God is a God of minutia. He knows and cares that in a few days, my family will be in temperate zones, SNOW and skiing (at least the kids) and then ending our trip in a closed country with that really big mountain where we will be 'visiting' with some lovely people who cannot openly get things they need, Tony and I  will be enjoying the company of some courageous people there who share like thoughts, and are always appreciative of encouragement and physical things like heavy clothing (a great place to recycle the ski clothes that we're collecting, knowing that it's questionable that we'll ever need them again).

So if you can spare a single moment in your busy lives to pray with us as we head off, thanking Him for HIS meticulous planning, and for our sensitivity to HIS leading to do the things we were made for.  

Have a great 'season' remembering the Reason. And don’t spare the details.

Marsha

(Sorry this is so long, when I mentioned my confusion about the passage, the ‘theologian’ in the room took over writing, since for him, it was as a much more interesting avenue of effort than packing.  Stay tuned for next week!)


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