OVER SPIRITUALIZING, COINCIDENCE, OR GOD INCIDENT? Exodus 28 and Psalm 25

Okay, this will be a long blog because I just can’t ignore so many God thoughts coming together in one day. 

Just the other day a friend was relating how he’d been struggling over a ministry opportunity he didn’t think he had the energy or desire to pursue.   His wife said she’d work with him, and while that was a little encouragement, it still wasn’t enough to cause him to say “yes”.   Then, while he was in the car listening to a Christian radio station, a certain song came on, and it was as if the Lord said loud and clear, “Go ahead and take that ministry opportunity.”   In explaining how the song was the means of convincing him, he said, “I don’t want to over spiritualize this, but when I heard that song, I knew the Lord wanted me to say yes.”

I’m not exactly sure what it means to over spiritualize something, but here are some examples that I think might come under that category.  

Attributing every bad thing to Satan.  Satan is certainly the author of evil, but sometimes what we attribute to him is our own fault – the result of sin and stupid, self centered choices.  Like blaming Satan for our financial hardships when we bought everything we wanted even though it was beyond our means.

Or questioning what God is doing, or not doing, in every single thing that touches our lives.  Like wondering what God is trying to tell us when our baby has colic, or we get a flat tire on the way to a job interview, or whether an idea we had in the middle of the night was from God or not.   I’ve done this.  I’ve gone round in circles trying to understand what earth shattering thing God is trying to tell me through a certain circumstance.  I don’t do that much anymore, because it drives me crazy, and most times I just don’t know the answer!  

 God can certainly accomplish His purposes through anything, but I’d rather just trust Him to do it than try and figure out what it could be.

On the other hand, I think in an effort NOT to over spiritualize, we can lean too much in the other direction and MISS the wonderful things God IS doing in our lives.   Here’s today’s example.

A friend asked me last week where I got the ideas for the blogs I’ve written.   The answer is easy, although it may be over spiritualizing!  :)   The LORD gives me the ideas!  I can’t tell you how often the Lord has used what I’ve been reading from the Bible, conversations with people, events in my day, issues I’m dealing with, and other things I’m reading all at the same time - to inspire me along a particular line.  Today was no different.

I’ve been reading my way through the book of Exodus in the Old Testament, landing today on a not so thrilling part, chapter 28, which describes God’s instructions to Moses for the making of the garments for the priests who would serve Him in the Tabernacle.  

Even in this kind of repetitive, some might even say “boring”, chapter, there were some amazing things to discover about God.  Like the fact that God loves order and detail and patterns.  

His explanations for each piece of the priest’s garments are exact and specific, like:  “Make the ephod (a kind of apron that joined at the shoulder and tied at the waist) of gold, and of blue, purple and scarlet yarn, and of finely twisted linen. . . .It is to have two shoulder pieces attached to two of its corners so it can be fastened. . . . Take two onyx stones and engrave on them the names of the sons of Israel in the order of their birth. . . . Engrave the names on the two stones the way a gem cutter engraves a seal..”  Moses didn’t have to guess at how God wanted things.  The Lord said, follow my instructions, ”just as you were shown on the mountain”, and Moses did.

Another thing I learn about God from chapter 28 is this:  God’s work is to be done God’s way – not only in the details, but in the quality of the work, and it is to be done well – we might say, “with excellence”.  In chapter 28, verses 3, 6, and 39 all mention that the work is to be done, not just by anyone, but by skilled craftsmen who know what they’re doing, will do the work well, and who will respond to instruction, especially when the instructor is God Himself!

The third thing I noticed could easily be overlooked, but it jumped out at me when I read it.  Chapter 28, verse 2-3 say:  “Make sacred garments for your brother Aaron, to give him dignity and honor.  Tell all the skilled men TO WHOM I HAVE GIVEN WISDOM IN SUCH MATTERS, THAT THEY ARE TO MAKE THE GARMENTS FOR Aaron, for his consecration so he may serve me as priest.”

How did these men know how they were to make the garments according to the Lord’s instructions?  He had given them the wisdom (the Hebrew meaning is the word SKILL) to do so.  Men with a God given mission – and a God given skill to be tailors and embroiderers and to follow the pattern God laid out, and then gave to Moses to pass along.  

That’s part one of where we’re going in this blog.   Part 2 comes from Psalm 25 which I also read today as part of my regular Bible reading.   Here’s where someone might say I’m over spiritualizing – but I don’t think so – I think the reading of Psalm 25 is not coincidence – but a God incident to add another dimension to our understanding of Exodus 28.

Psalm 25 is written by David and its theme, written just before the psalm begins is:  A prayer for defense, guidance and pardon.  

What I noticed is that the Lord had a theme going all right and in my mind, the theme was this:  When we worry too much about over spiritualizing we miss the truth that God IS real, living, practical, personal, and ACTIVE in speaking to our hearts and lives every single day, and that when we seek His guidance, we can EXPECT that He WILL give it!  Can you see the theme?

Psalm 25:4-5 “SHOW ME your ways, O LORD, TEACH ME your paths, GUIDE ME in your truth, and TEACH ME, for You are God my Savior.”

v. 8-9  “Good and upright is the LORD; therefore He INSTRUCTS sinners in His ways.  He GUIDES the humble in what is right and TEACHES them His way.”

v. 12b  “(The LORD) will INSTRUCT him in the way chosen for him.” (There IS a way chosen for ME – as it was for those skilled craftsmen – and the Lord Himself will INSTRUCT me in that way!)

v. 14  “The LORD CONFIDES in those who fear Him” (Imagine that!?  The Creator and Lord of all the universe confides in ME??!!!  Wow, what an awesome thought!)

I see in all of these a tie in to how the LORD worked in those skilled craftsmen in Moses’ day.  God Himself gave them the wisdom and skill to do what He had planned for them to do, in the way He planned for them to do it.  He INSTRUCTED and He CONFIDED.

Does that not sound exactly like what the Apostle Paul says in Ephesians 2:10? “For we are God’s workmanship, CREATED in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God PREPARED IN ADVANCE for us to do.”

So it seems not over spiritualizing AT ALL to say that the Lord – who shows, teaches, instructs, guides, and confides in us – would specifically lead us into His will – usually through the counsel of His Word, and the inner assurance of His Spirit, but sometimes even through the confirming word of a song.

But that’s only part 2 of this blog.  Here’s the exciting “God thing” part – it could be called over spiritualizing, but I prefer to call it God pulling it all together so we could get a glimpse of His amazing GLORY!  

Lo and behold, Oswald Chambers reading for today was also from Psalm 25:14, “The LORD confides in those who fear Him!”  Okay, come on, you skeptics, that CAN’T be coincidence!   I read the Psalm before I even knew the theme verse of Chambers devotional for today!

Here’s what Chambers has to say:

At the beginning of the Christian life we are full of requests to God.  But then we find that God wants to get us into an intimate relationship with Himself – to get us in touch with His purposes.  Are you so intimately united to Jesus Christ’s idea of prayer – “Your will be done” (Matthew 6:10) – that you catch the confidences of God?  What makes God so dear to us is not so much His big blessings to us, but the tiny things (like direction for a blog, or His Spirit speaking through a song), because they show His amazing intimacy with us – He knows every detail of each of our individual lives.

Psalm 25:12 ‘He will instruct him in the way chosen for him (the way those skilled craftsmen in Exodus were instructed in the way chosen by God for THEM).’   

At first, we want the awareness of being guided by God.  But then as we grow spiritually, we live so fully aware of God that we do not even need to ask what His will is, because the thought of choosing another way will never occur to us.  If we are saved and sanctified, God guides us by our everyday choices.  And if we are about to choose what He does not want, He will give us a sense of doubt or restraint, which we must heed. Whenever there is doubt, stop at once.  Never try to reason it out, saying, “I wonder why I shouldn’t do this?”  God instructs us in what we choose; that is, He actually guides our common sense.  And when we yield to His teachings and guidance, we no longer hinder His Spirit by continually asking, “Now, Lord, what is your will?”

Don’t you long to get to the place where you have grown so much spiritually, where you’re so fully aware of God, that you never again need to ask what His will is?  Yeah, me too.

But, if you’re not there yet either, we can fall back on Psalm 25 and ask with David, “Show me, teach me, instruct me, confide in me”, and then instead of wondering whether it is God leading, take the first step out by faith, trusting that He WILL answer because that's what He says!

I WILL instruct you in the way chosen FOR YOU.   I CONFIDE in those who fear Me.

The God who loved us enough to provide, through the death and resurrection of His Son, a way back into relationship with Him, SEES us, HEARS us, and wants to be intimately and personally involved in our lives!  

It’s not over spiritualization to EXPECT these things of God.   Its faith.