Unfathomable Cost of the Material's List

In Exodus God makes one of His longest speeches to man where He dictates the making of His Tabernacle.  He dictates the materials, the methods of making and the purpose of each part as He lays out where and how the people of Israel will be daily joined to Him.  The sincerity of material and ceremony is finely beautiful.  There is a deep and abiding meaning to this, as it is really a preparation for humans to be in relationship with God Almighty.  The most sincere material of all time would be the human blood that kept the Son of God alive.  It must be one of the greatest mysteries of all time how human blood could sustain the Living God and how precious each drop of that blood was.  His freely spilling out that Preciousness over my sins and me is an Act Of Devine Sincerity unfathomable in its cost of material.

Taming The Wildness With Beauty

The story of the collecting of materials to build the tabernacle found in the middle chapters of Exodus is an exquisite read.  It contradicts all that we know of nature and affirms the Goodness and Grace of God.  Nature is a dangerous place and in its most sincere form can be deadly to humans.  Its great mountain peaks, its wild seas, its volcanoes and hurricanes is nature being given free reign to run its course.  In the midst of this we find color, blue, purple and scarlet, we find rare material, gold, silver, bronze and sapphires, and animal skins that reveal a soft richness that must rival the walls of heaven.  God extracts these things from nature to build a sculptural manifestation of His Holy Loveliness and that Loveliness given freely to envelope us.  Beauty is the ultimate taming of the deadly wildness of nature.

Thank God for Grove Oklahoma

Grove Oklahoma

There is a big sky on this morning much like the 17^th C. Dutch landscape paintings.  Crows call out over the fields and the dew is thick as silk on a bride.  I am so glad God came off Mt. Sinai and into a manger in Bethlehem so we can come to personally know who we owe all this gratitude to for mornings such as this.  Saying thank You is one of the sincerest ways of loving God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength.  

All You Need Is Love, But A Certain Love

How God’s love is.  We are to live in it, a life filled with gratefulness that this Love is not of ourselves.  We should live by it that His love is what animates our life.  We should offer it, as we live today, to all those that might need it.  We should give it away to all those that unknowingly are rejecting it.  And we should end the day resting in it as that which has brought us through once again. 

Clarity

Only a blue jay, my neighbor’s dog and I are awake.  There are a limited number sunrises in ones life.  Sometimes the only ones that seem to care are animals.

One’s rocking chair should always face the rising sun and then turn during the day to see it set. 

POST SCRIPT: written a few minutes later.  I do not like blue jays.  They can be cruel.  A gang of six or seven that come in early to make their presence known has invaded my woods.  I was complaining to my wife and she said try praising God for them.  I have.  This morning it was one lone jay squawking and screeching.  I wrote the above and then bowed my head to pray.  I was praying in praise for God when a sweet Mocking Birds tune came through the woods followed by all manner of sweet birds.  I smiled in my prayers, shook my head and thought of God mandating a jay as the drill sergeant that throws the trash can down the barracks to awaken everyone to attention to get about their jobs of praising God.