I’ve been reading to my son from a book of poems about bugs. Here’s a cute one:
Drippy Day
I wouldn’t blame a Beetle-Bug
who started to complain
when the day was cloudy
and the sky began to rain:
He doesn’t have a cozy house,
the lonely little fellow.
He only has a drippy leaf
to make him an umbrellow.
(from When It Comes to Bugs by Aileen Fisher)
At first I wasn’t sure he was actually interested in the poems or even paying attention. But then one day out in the garden, he was standing under part of a tomato vine that I was tying up and he said, “Look, mama, my umbrellow!”
I guess little children are more in the habit of looking up than adults because of their shorter stature, so they notice what’s up. Getting down low and looking up is also the best way to find caterpillars hiding underneath the tomato leaves. Yesterday I was harvesting tomatoes when I looked up and – EEK! – a big fat caterpillar, clinging onto the vine with a vise grip.
The other night at dinner, outside on the patio under the shade canopy, Hosea gave this impromptu speech: “God is Jesus. God is Power. This is God’s big tent over us. It’s his temple church. I love him.”
I’m leading a Bible study on Exodus right now. When the Israelites were instructed to construct the tabernacle, God said, “Then have them make a sanctuary for me, and I will dwell among them” (Exodus 25:9). It was also called the Tent of Meeting, not because the people met there, but because that was where God met them. “There I will meet with you and speak with you; there also I will meet with the Israelites, and the place will be consecrated by my glory.” (Exodus 29:42-43)
It was specifically from between the wings of the cherubim over the ark of the Testimony that God spoke (see Numbers 7:89). The Psalms speak repeatedly of taking refuge in the shadow of God’s wings; I usually think of this as referring to taking refuge under a mother bird’s wing, but now I wonder if it is really referring to the ark. For in Psalm 61:4, David wrote, “I long to dwell in your tent forever and take refuge in the shelter of your wings.” He was longing to be in God’s presence in the temple.
When God covers us with his wings, we dwell in his presence and he meets with us, and his glory is revealed. What an awesome thing! But this can even happen in little ways as we seek him. That is what happened to Hosea and I this summer under the tomato plant when I prayed for those tomatoes (see previous post). God met with us under his umbrellow, and revealed his glory to us.
Facing Jordan 