I am having such a good time making quilts! Yesterday I finished piecing the top for a new one. I’ve ordered backing fabric and am thinking about how to quilt it while I wait for the delivery. The most enjoyable thing about quilting is that God actually speaks to me about it. He gives me patterns, even tells me how to construct them. Sometimes the idea for a quilt comes in a dream and other times it just comes to me. Then He guides me through the construction process, down to the last detail of colors, piecing, quilting, and binding. His guidance is not dramatic, not sensational or emotional — no trumpet fanfares or flashes of lightening. It is everyday casual, but it is God. That is a revelation in itself.
This morning I was reading in Exodus about the building of the Tabernacle in the wilderness. The instructions God gave to Moses were very specific and detailed, right down to the colors and patterns and materials to be used. I have always assumed that the tabernacle, and later the Temple in Jerusalem, were sacred places and that was why God spoke in such extraordinary detail about their construction.
Then I read about the priests that ministered in the tabernacle. They had extraordinary costumes to wear. God gave complicated and detailed instruction about those garments, right down to the underwear. I always figured those priests were special, holy people picked by God to minister to and for Him and that’s why He gave such detailed guidance for their clothing.
But consisder this: the New Testament tells us that every believer in Jesus Christ is a priest. Peter calls us “a royal priesthood” (I Peter 2:9). He says we are “living stones” being “built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood” and are to “offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (I Peter 2:5). Our sacrifices as believers are not the slain animals of the Old Testament but a continual “sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that give thanks to His name” (Hebrews 13:15). If God intimately guided the building of the tabernacle tent in the desert and if he gave detailed instructions concerning the brick and mortar temple in Jerusalem, shall He not also intimately guide us today in the building of His new temple, the Church of Jesus Christ? Is not the spiritual service of worship we are called to today at least as important as the sacrifices offered by those early priests?
I have not expected enough of God and he has come crashing into my low expectations by involving Himself in my making of quilts. There is precedent for this kind of guidance in the building of the Old Testament places of worship, but I would never have thought of myself as one of those special, holy priests except that God says I am one. Because I am a priest of the Most High God, whatever I put my hands to matters. If you are a believer in Jesus Christ then you are a priest too and whatever you put your hands to matters.
God wants to be involved intimately and down to the fine details in everything I do. Whether I am making a quilt, cooking a meal, or working in an office, everything I do should be inspired by the Holy Spirit and bring glory to God. I can expect Him to guide me every step of the way, not just in the crises of my life or in those “mountain top” experiences of worship. He is an everyday, all the time God. He is teaching me to look for Him in the small details. I pray He will help all of us to look for and practice His Presence, to listen for His voice that is intimate and practical right down to our fingertips.