I am confident that many of you reading this remember the days when I wore Hawaiian shirts. I have even had several requests to reinstate the fashion.
But truth be told, that would be impossible, unless I begin a brand-new wardrobe. For you see, I reconditioned those shirts, hiring a good friend to make them into quilts for Christmas gifts a few years back. And honestly, they turned out amazing. Each quilt tells a story, taking individual moments of my life and collectively piecing them together, for the making of a more magnificent story.
King David knew about such crafting, as he desired to build a temple to honor the God he loved. But God had another plan. He was weaving together a legacy that could not be contained in a building. The mosaic of God’s story was coming together in a way that was beyond anything David could have imagined, but God would use his family to accomplish that plan – “He (Jesus) will reign with fairness and justice from the throne of his ancestor David for ALL eternity” (Isaiah 9:7).
Much like my shirts, of which once, only I could wear, are now weaved into quilts for everyone else to enjoy. You see, what David desired would be weaved into something so much more – Jesus, our Immanuel, meaning God with us, and in us (Matthew 1:23).
Like David, he would be known as a shepherd and a king, but unlike David, this King would be unlike any king Israel had ever seen. He would not reside in a temple, but in our hearts.
