ARE YOU A ‘MAKER’? God Uses Artists, Craftsmen, Designers, Engineers, Mechanics, and Hobbyists.

Pictured: Jesus showing his mother Mary a table he built, a scene from the film THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST.

I once asked my father, “Daddy, are you a people person, an idea person, or a thing person?”

There was a pause while he looked up from the model airplane he was building.

“I don’t know.  Can I be all three?”

As you grow, God may indeed train you to enjoy all three.  But what is your passion? It probably favors one area over another.  Given his engineering career and innumerable hobbies, my dad’s deepest passion was probably “things,” though he loved good stories, great books, and deep conversations about ideas.

Do you hold “MAKERS” in lower esteem than thinkers, leaders, writers, and preachers?  God does not.  He revealed Himself as Creator first, and the Bible is filled with passages indicating how important good craftsmanship is to God.  Consider some of the ingredients that went into the building of the tabernacle:

1. Acacia wood (harder and more beautiful than oak)
2. 2,193 pounds of gold
3. 7,544 pounds of silver
4. 5,310 pounds of bronze
5. Anointing oil
6. “pure, fragrant, and expertly blended incense”
7. Carnelian, topaz, emerald, turquoise, sapphire, diamond, jacinth, agate, amethyst, beryl, onyx, jasper
8. Ram skins dyed red and Manatee skins
9. Finely spun linen
10. Blue, purple, and scarlet yarn

“They hammered out thin sheets of gold, and he [Bezalel] cut threads from them to interweave with the blue, purple, and scarlet yarn, and the fine linen in a skillful design” Exodus 39:3.

Could you do that? What, make golden thread and weave it into a priestly garment–are you kidding me? This was but one task among thousands necessary to prepare the tabernacle and the priests who would serve there.  “The Israelites did all the work according to everything the Lord had commanded Moses” 39:42. 

God BLESSED their obedience “and the GLORY OF THE LORD filled the tabernacle” 40:35.  God blesses the work of His artists, designers, craftsmen, and mechanics.  Their work is not “second-class” in God’s eyes.  He gives us “Maker-gifts” so we can fulfill His purposes. (Remember, God chose a carpenter to raise Jesus and teach him a vocation.)

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