Once as a child, my family enjoyed a holiday with Eurocamp. What a delight to discover our tent already pitched in the grounds of a French Chateau with the immense luxury of camp beds and a working fridge rather than the leaky rubberised air beds and the ice box with the pink and blue ice bricks (that melted too quickly to keep the milk from going sour) that we were used to using.
Since then camping has gone up in the world – I think it is known as “glamping” – flashy tents or yurts with “all mod cons” from beds with sprung mattresses and feather duvets, to wood burning stoves to solar powered phone chargers!
After God had made a covenant with the Israelites, he had them build an altar for God in a tent and from the description in Exodus, it sounds very luxurious.
God said, “..have them make a sanctuary for me and I will dwell among them. Make this tabernacle and all its furnishings exactly like the pattern I will show you.”
Exodus 25:8-9 [NIV]
The finest materials were used to build it, the finest woods overlaid with gold. Huge curtains made from animal hide covered it and cloths of blue, purple and scarlet yarn inlaid with cherubim and seraphim and golden lampstands surrounded it. The instructions fill several chapters of the book of Exodus!
This was to be the place where God was worshipped – a vivid reminder of God in the midst of his people. But the tabernacle was not a permanent feature – that was in the future when the Temple was built in Jerusalem. The Ark of the Covenant was to move around with the people as they moved. God promised to dwell among his people. God would be in their midst and would move on with them when the time came, his Ark being carried through the desert.
For some of us, our lives might seem unsettled and disjointed, moving from place to place, job to job, but we are reminded that wherever God has led us, he is with us.
Thank God for the place where you live, where you work or volunteer. Thank him that however your life changes, wherever God leads you, he has promised to be there in the midst of your life.
Mairi Mowbray
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