Bezalel: Exploring Your Creative CallingНамуна

DAY 1:

Strange Land, Strange Call  

Let’s set the scene for a minute: You’re a part of a movement led by an ex-prince with a speech impediment, started by a series of supernatural plagues, and just beginning to set up some semblance of a theocracy in the middle of a desert. Your grandfather is one of the twelve senior leaders of this movement and you have a sort of name for yourself in the way of creative design. You’ve heard a little bit about the start of a Temple for your God, who, unlike all the others you’ve seen, has no face. You can’t boast about how greatly you’ve carved idols because your God’s new rules say you can’t carve any. Instead of building some sort of picture or memento of His power, your God actually wants a Home to live in, a place to dwell with His people. 

And he picks you to make it. 

This was where Bezalel found himself at the beginning of Exodus 31. He’s picked out of a crowd of what theologians say was probably dozens of skilled architects and artists waiting for the chance to make their mark on history. He isn’t picked by a committee of men and women with some sort of expertise. No--Bezalel is picked by the future tabernacle’s Resident In Question. 

Maybe there were others just as talented as Bezalel, just as intelligent. What’s important is that he was called to create. The Tabernacle was something that had never been created before and its design required someone specially chosen to turn the dreams of God into a physical reality. 

God didn’t have to use Bezalel to make a tabernacle. He could have spoken like He did with all of Creation and just let it come to be. He chose, however, and still chooses to partner with creatives who see beyond the physical and desire to create a beautiful atmosphere where his Spirit can abide—whether that’s within the walls of a tent, between the lines of a story, or inside the notes of a song. 

There’s a pretty good possibility that the dreams that live inside your head--the ones you’ve never seen others put walls to, the ones that you have a gut feeling could shift atmospheres and change nations—point towards your calling as a creative person. Take some time today to put those dreams at the forefront of your prayer and ask Jesus why he gave them to you. Don’t get overwhelmed by your perceived “qualifications”--you just might discover your calling.