"You shall make the court of the tabernacle. On the south side the court shall have hangings of fine twined linen a hundred cubits long for one side. Its twenty pillars and their twenty bases shall be of bronze, but the hooks of the pillars and their fillets shall be of silver. And likewise for its length on the north side there shall be hangings a hundred cubits long, tis pillars twenty and their bases twenty, of bronze, but the hooks of the pillars and their fillets shall be of silver. And for the breadth of the court on the west side..."
Exodus 27:9-12
I've been reading through Exodus for my devotional time these days, and I was struck by something today. How often did the person or people in charge of setting up the tabernacle mess up? Given the detail of these directions (the passage above is just a few of the hundreds of verses instructing the Israelites on how to build and set up the tabernacle) they must have slipped up in minor and sometimes major ways every day, right? Maybe one day somebody forgot to hook one of the clasps in correctly and one of the coverings hung a little off center that day. Or maybe instead of facing east, they accidentally set everything up to the north-east. In one way or another, they must have made some mistakes.
The holiness of God is part of the parable of the tabernacle, and it is a major theme throughout the Old Testament. And God's holiness is not something to be trifled with. Take God's warning to Moses just a few chapters earlier in Exodus. There he warns the people not to go on to the mountain unconsecrated, because God's holiness would otherwise cause his breaking out against them. Or later in David's time, we hear of one of the bearers of the ark dying because he puts his unconsecrated hand on the ark just to steady it from falling. God's holiness is clearly not something to be underestimated.
And yet there are no reports in the Old Testament of God breaking out against someone for missing a clasp or misreading true north. Though his people must certainly have made some mistakes, God displayed patience, not anger. What is more, in the midst of people messing up and misinterpreting his plan for the tabernacle, God still thought it worthwhile to give them the plan in the first place. All throughout their journey, he continued to stay and work with them, never giving up on the plan, and certainly never giving up on them.
I think there's something for the modern church in this. Though the church today, though your particular ministry, may be far from what God has planned for it, he is not ready to bail on us. Yes, we break his heart sometimes...maybe every time. Yes we totally get it wrong sometimes. But he is not the one who's going to be pulling out of this relationship. He's not willing to give up on us.
One last note: On their really off days, I don't think it's too crazy to imagine that there were some tabernacle builders who felt some sense of despair, or even some Israelites who questioned what the point of the tabernacle was in the first place. Though God had given them the plan on the mountaintop, the Israelites spent far more of their time in the wilderness.
Sometimes in the mess of life, it's pretty easy to feel like there is no plan. But the truth is, just like building God's tabernacle prepared the Israelites to build and worship in the Jerusalem Temple, God's plan always comes through. God knows exactly what he is doing. His plan is not only real, it is one-hundred percent effective and trustworthy.
In the mess of life, put your hope and trust in Him.
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