Enough Already

Exodus 35: 30- 36:7

Remember our old friends Bezalel and Oholiab? Moses takes this opportunity to out them as inspired (literally) craftsmen. He lists many areas of expertise of Bezalel's handiwork. He tells them he's gifted with abilities working with gold, silver, bronze, stones, wood, and "all kinds of artistic craftsmanship." Plus he and Oholiab are gifted as teachers. They can also do work with yarn and linen embroidery, designing, and weaving.

So this newly trained troop start to build the sanctuary.

There's a lot of repetition here. We talked about it earlier and you can remind yourself of it by going here: http://chiphall.blogspot.com/2008/09/oh-holy-ab.html

What follows, though, is pretty cool and I think new. The offerings keep coming. Morning after morning there's new stuff being brought for the work. Finally, the workmen go to Moses and say, look we've got plenty- in fact more than we need to get the job done.

So Moses decrees- no one else is to bring anything else for the sanctuary.

Interesting. No locked doors until we get enough. No final desperate plea to close out the pledge drive. No guilt trips or shameful sanctuary plugs to get the last few shekels. They had more than enough offered- and had to be stopped from bringing more.

Cool challenge. Can I give enough (financially or otherwise) that someone has to stop me and say... we dont need any more. Can I invest so fully in a need that the need goes away? Can I care enough about anything that my focus, my strengths, and my resources go to it until the job is actually done?

May our lives be filled with completed sanctuaries.