Our God Is Into the Details

I'm still trying to finish up my 'Bible in a Year' assignment from last year. I didn't finish on time, but I'm determined to at least finish! At one point in time I was pretty far behind and I decided to skip ahead to the assigned texts for the day and come back later to catch up.

So, that brings me to my reading today in Ezekiel, chapters 40 - 42. This is not one of the most exciting passages to read. The Israelites have been exiled for 25 years, and God gave Ezekial a vision of the new temple of Israel. With a linen cord and a measuring rod, a man measured out the temple in front of Ezekiel, ordering him to pay attention to everything he is being show. He is to tell the house of Israel everything he sees.

Then, for the next 2 1/2 chapters, you get excruciating details of the length and height of each portion of the temple. We learn the direction things are to face, the type of decorations to be carved, even the placement of the windows.

As I struggled to read through all this detail, I wondered why it was so important for us to know these things. I'm sure it was vital for the Israelites 45 years later when they returned to rebuild the temple, but couldn't they have used the blue prints from the original temple?

But it occurred to me that, while this seems to be overly specific, our God is definitely into details. He could tell us to just build a temple, but in our feeble imaginations and abilities we wouldn't do a proper job. He wants us to succeed, so he spells out all the details we need to know in order to get it right.

God does the same thing for us today. He's provided great levels of detail about how we are to live our lives -- to do all things without arguing or complaining, to respect our husbands, to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, all of our strength, and all of our soul. He provides a very detailed blueprint for our lives if we will only follow it.

Unfortunately, some days I'm sure that the temple I'm building for him in my own body is ready to crumble, shored up with duct tape and coat hangers. But block by block he's helping me to repair my weak foundation and to build a strong eternity. I don't want to cut any corners on this one!