5 Days Of Exploring Doubt With The Logic Of GodSample

Disparate Threads

Some years ago, I was visiting a place known for making the best wedding saris in the world. They were the producers of saris rich in gold and silver threads, resplendent with an array of colors. With such intricacy of product, I expected to see some elaborate system of machines that would boggle the mind in production. But this image could not have been further from the real scene.

Each sari was made individually by a father-and-son team. The father sat above the son on a platform, surrounded by several spools of thread that he would gather into his fingers. The son had only one task. At a nod from his father, he would move the shuttle from one side to the other and back again. This would then be repeated for hundreds of hours, until a magnificent pattern began to emerge.

The son certainly had the easier task. He was only to move at the father’s nod. But making use of these efforts, the father was working to an artful end. All along, he had the design in his mind and was bringing the right threads together.

The more I reflect on my own life and study the lives of others, I am fascinated to see the design God has for each one of us individually, if we would only respond. All through our days, little reminders show the threads that God has woven into our lives.

Allow me to share a story from my own experience. As one searching for meaning in the throes of a turbulent adolescence, I found myself on a hospital bed from an attempted suicide. It was there that I was read John 14:19, and my attention was fully captured by what Jesus said to His disciples: “Because I live, ye shall live also.” I turned my life over to Christ that day, committing my pains, struggles, and pursuits to His able hands.

Almost thirty years to the day after this decision, my wife and I were in India and decided to visit my grandmother’s grave. With the help of a gardener we walked through the accumulated weeds and rubble until we found the stone marking her grave. With his bucket of water and a small brush, the gardener cleared off the years of caked-on dirt. To our utter surprise, under her name, a verse gradually appeared. My wife clasped my hand and said, “Look at the verse!” It read: “Because I live, ye shall live also.”

If an ordinary weaver can create out of a collection of colored threads a garment that will beautify the face, can the Grand Weaver not have a design in mind for you, a design that will adorn you, as He uses your life to fashion you, using all the threads He has within His reach? A purposeful design emerges when the Father weaves a pattern from what to us may often seem disparate threads.