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You open your hand and they are satisfied. Psalm 104

“Would you let my father and mother stay with you until I learn what God will do for me?” David made this request to the King of Moab.

Before David took the throne he was in a tight spot. He knew King Saul wanted to kill him. He also knew that his family would not be safe while he moved about and sought to

discover what God would do for him. Often, I find myself in need of direction for the next period of life.

I remember clearly the first time God extended His hand to me — He lifted me up from death into life.

Then, a few years later, I saw His hands extended at arms’ length holding a map of the world. I heard these

words, “This is the how I see your life.”

Before each of these life-giving, life-changing, life’s course altering events I did not know God was coming to give me His hand or to show me what was in His hand.

Later in life, as I came to one impasse or another, I have been keenly aware how

SEEING THINGS NOW

”Would you let my mother and my father stay with you until I learn what God will do for me?”

King David

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much I needed to have what was in His hand.

Often I cry out, as King David did in 2 Samuel 24:14, “Please do not let me be captured by the enemy or fall into their hands.”

Recently, I was reviewing pictures I took during the demolition phase of our new synagogue. Jackhammers had cut channels and trenches into the cement floors. Dirt, dug from below the foundation, was piled knee high here and there in many of the spaces where classrooms, offices and the sanctuary would later be.

During those days we had to navigate through piles of dirt and jump over trenches the width of hallways to get from one area of the building to another. There were rooms with trenches running this way then that, pipes protruding at odd angles and, of course, piles and piles of dirt.

The conference room was half-full of insulation and in the other half, such an assortment! There were ceiling tiles stacked literally to the ceiling, air return vents, bathroom sinks and mop sinks, light fixtures and, of all things, toilets!

How could anyone see past this mess to what this place would actually become?

God’s direction had been very clear, “...Make for Me a Sanctuary that I may dwell with them.”

How did the work crew have the fortitude to go on? How did they take the news that they had to move the insulation one more

“Make for me a Sanctuary that I may dwell with them.” I thought, how could this mess possibly fulfill this request?

“Please do not let me be captured by the enemy or fall into their hands.”

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Trenches where rooms should be, pipes protruding this way and that...

The conference room piled with insulation, ceiling tiles and......

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time? Or to pile dozens of doors first in this room, then haul them into that one?

God had used us as a sort of container to house experiences and elements that could be incorporated into a Sanctuary for Him.

These raw materials were assembled from experiences in our lives — aesthetics which had made an impression on us, memories of parks and buildings that inspired us, even pictures from beloved books. Then, at His appointed time, He used those raw materials as inspiration, as a beginning.

When I reviewed these pictures I saw new meaning in demolition, repurposing and reconstruction. All these phases lead to a finished product.

Isn’t this how God works on the building of my life?

He received me in a specific condition. Then with an eye towards the end result He began to tear things out, sometimes repurposing, but always restructuring, redesigning and reconstructing.

When I see the mess and feel the pain of demolition, I ask for a glimpse into His hand. I may have to wait. I may even have to go someplace until I learn what He will do for me.

Each time, God has opened His hand and satisfied me.

“When I see the mess and feel the pain of demolition, I ask for a glimpse into His hand.

I may even have to go someplace to wait until I learn what He will do for me.”

- Sandy Levine

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