Grains of Sand

Google Images When we get to a section of the Scripture like the parts we have here in Exodus, many of us get bogged down. Who cares about all the details of building a Tabernacle? Apparently God does. Okay, so God cares about the details, but why do I need to know that He ordered Moses to: “ Make fifty loops on one curtain and fifty loops on the end curtain of the other set, with the loops opposite each other ” (Exodus 26:5)? It’s a sparrow thing (Matthew 10:29). It’s a hair thing (Matthew 10:30). It’s a tears-in-the-bottle thing (Psalm 56:8). It’s why we have Spring (eventually) and a full moon on schedule. It’s why the birds comes back from the south in the Spring and head back in the Fall. It’s why each snowflake is a different design, and why a spider weaves such intricate webs. God is God of details. And He reminds us that the details are important to Him. It’s not that He’s being a nit-picker, or fussy. It’s that He wants us to know that no detail, however small, escapes His...

Google Images John records for us how those first disciples came into contact with Jesus. The episode with Nathanael is particularly interesting. Philip, after meeting Jesus personally, went to find his friend, Nathanael, to tell him that he had found the Messiah. Nathanael was skeptical but went along out of curiosity. When Jesus saw him, the Lord identified him as a “ true Israelite, in whom there is nothing false ” (John 1:47). That resonated with Nathanael. The conversation provided the tipping point that brought this “true Israelite” into Jesus’ first circle of followers. “ ‘How do you know me?’ Nathanael asked. Jesus answered, ‘I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you. ’” (1:48). It seems obvious that whatever Philip was thinking while under that tree had something to do with why Jesus would identify him as a true Israelite in whom there was no falsehood. Recently I was at an event where the speaker “suggested” that she had some special insig...