details...

...i love them, and sometimes i'm bothered by the fact that others don't seem to love them as much as i do. okay, well, maybe they do love details, just not the ones i think they should :).

for instance, i love that i just discovered the "glory revealed ii" CD on spotify. it came out in 2009, but i missed that somehow, and i'm just happy to have found it. the lyrics are songs of Scripture, God's Word in action, psalms! but how about the fact that one song is labeled "psalms 23" with an "s," in plural form. as far as i know, there's only one psalm 23, and there's certainly only one mentioned in the song. i get that in the big scheme of things that it's not so important, but to me, that mistake makes the whole CD production just a little less special [sigh]...i could go on with heaps of examples here, but i'll spare you.

that in mind, i'll share that suppe and i are reading through the whole Bible in a year, which isn't always easy to do. these past few days, we've been reading through exodus, and starting in about chapter 25, the LORD goes into great detail about how the sanctuary and and ark of the covenant, among other things, are to be built. and honestly, right about the time i got to the third two-and-a-half cubits with gold overlay section, my mind started to wander, and it ended up here: why were all of these details included in the Bible, and why in the world did it matter if something was 2.5 or 3 cubits or purple or blue? what is a cubit, anyway?

but in that moment, God spoke to me: i care about details, about all of them, and that quality of Mine is one of the greatest blessings in your life. and it is. no, i haven't missed the irony here. i'd spent the past few days complaining about others' lack of concern with detail, and here i was complaining about the Lord's over concern. but there was just so much detail in all these verses...

i started thinking about what that meant in my own life. firstly, God is God, and i have no right to question what He thinks is important or not, and, secondly, would i rather serve a god who didn't care about all the minute details?

david knew all about God's concern for detail. in psalm 139, he pours his heart out to God, saying, "13 For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. 14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. 15 My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. 16 Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. 17 How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! 18 If I would count them, they are more than the sand...(ESV).

Jesus continues this line of thinking in the famous "sermon on the mount" when he says, 30-33"If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers—most of which are never even seen—don't you think he'll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you? What I'm trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God's giving. People who don't know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don't worry about missing out. You'll find all your everyday human concerns will be met. 34 Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don't get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes" (the message).

a few chapters later, Jesus adds, 28"Don't be bluffed into silence by the threats of bullies. There's nothing they can do to your soul, your core being. Save your fear for God, who holds your entire life—body and soul—in his hands. 29-31What's the price of a pet canary? Some loose change, right? And God cares what happens to it even more than you do. He pays even greater attention to you, down to the last detail—even numbering the hairs on your head! So don't be intimidated by all this bully talk. You're worth more than a million canaries" (matthew 10.28-31, the message).

okay, so i hope you get the point here. we are privileged and blessed beyond measure to be called sons and daughters of the Creator of the universe who made all the stars in the heavens and flowers in the fields and us, and even though he's running the whole world, he still knows when a hair falls from our heads or a tear from our eyes...because he's a God of grace, mercy, love, and detail.

so the next time i'm annoyed or bothered by the fact that God gives us a lot of "details" to live by, i'm going to do two things: 1) praise God for the amazing blessing of him caring about the details of my life, and 2) ask him to give me patience and understanding in dealing with the people in my life who don't seem to care or notice or place importance on the details i do.

easy? no. possible? yes. worth it? absolutely.