Tedious details

Sometimes life feels very tedious….so many details to work out.   As I look around my house this morning I see many tedious tasks before me to get my house in order.    When I read today’s scripture, Ezekiel 40-43, I find that part of God’s character is to deal with very tedious and specific tasks.  Here He is giving Ezekiel very specific instructions as to how His temple should be rebuilt following its destruction by the Babylonians.   Each specific measurement is detailed here.  I read with impatience for the punch line.  Some questions that ran through my mind as I read: Didn’t the people of Israel remember Solomon’s temple well enough to just reconstruct it?    Why was God so concerned about this when He was going to send Jesus as the complete atonement for the sins of the world making temple worship obsolete?   What can possibly be hidden in these tedious descriptions that can impact me today?

The punch line for me comes in chapter 43 when Ezekiel describes the return of God’s glory to Israel…..magnificent!!  (Something I believe we will witness some day.)   When this was written it was meant to give Israel hope in the midst of their exile.   God had not given up on them no matter how unfaithful they had been to Him.   His tedious description of how the temple should be rebuilt was even more confirmation that God had not given up on them to provide a place worthy of His holiness.       Nor does he give up on us to provide a place for His holy presence to reside inside us. As 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 states it is our bodies that are the Temple for God’s Holy Spirit now.   May we not tire of the tedious work to prepare ourselves as a place for His Spirit to reside.

Now on to the tedious work of preparing my house for my family’s presence.