PINNED TO THE PATTERN

R.L. Culberstson

I have learned not to disturb my wife’s sewing room. With three daughters to sew for, she always has one or two dresses in some stage of production, and there are usually bits and pieces lying around.
One day I went into the sewing room to ask her a question. While we were talking, I noticed a scrap of cloth on the floor. I picked it up and was about to throw it away when she cried out in alarm, “What are you doing?”
“Throwing this scrap of cloth away,” I innocently replied.
“That’s not a scrap,” she explained. “It’s a yoke.”
“I thought yolks were round and yellow,” I answered.
The look in her eyes let me know my yoke joke wasn’t the least bit funny to her. “Don’t be silly,” she said. “It’s a dress yoke.” Then she turned and put the errant piece of cloth back on the shelf where it belonged.
Looking at the piles of cloth that would someday become three dresses, I wondered how she knew where everything belonged. A few pieces were laid out waiting to be worked on, but they offered no help. To me they looked like giant pieces of a jigsaw puzzle waiting to be put together.
       “How do you keep from getting mixed up?” I asked. “Aren’t you afraid you’ll sew the sleeve for one dress on the body of another?”
To my surprise, my wife started laughing.
“I’m serious,” I said. “How do you keep from getting mixed up?”
She picked up the piece of cloth I almost threw away and turned it over. “Didn’t you notice it’s still pinned to the pattern?” she said. “Look. This tells you what piece it is, and these marks correspond to specific directions explaining how to sew the dress together.” Suddenly some of the mysteries of dressmaking started to vanish. Long ago I noticed the pieces of cloth pinned to the pattern; now I knew why. Besides showing the exact size to cut each piece, the pattern also contains printed instructions showing how the dress should be put together.
To me it was a startling revelation. Yet the more I thought about it, the more I appreciated the simple wisdom of such a method. As the seamstress follows the step-by-step directions, the dress begins to take shape. It’s as though the person who designed the dress were standing besides her telling what to do next.
Our Heavenly Father knows the value of using a pattern. When leading the children of Israel through the wilderness, He called Moses aside and gave him minutely detailed instructions for the construction of a wilderness tabernacle. They were to be followed with absolute care. And to impress Moses with this necessity, God said, “See...that thou shall make all things according to the pattern shown to thee in the mount” (Heb. 8:5).
Hebrews 9:23 tells us the wilderness tabernacle and everything in it were copied from the originals in Heaven. In establishing a place where the Israelites could meet with Him, God wanted to duplicate the order of worship He had established in Heaven.
Moses and the workmen he enlisted worked carefully. When they had finished, the tabernacle was perfect in every detail. Yet it failed to bring man into divine relationship with God. Why? Simply because man failed to stay pinned to the pattern.
In the 20th chapter of Ezekiel God explained this failure. He told Ezekiel how He had instructed the people to get rid of their strange gods and not to defile themselves with the idols of Egypt. But the people of Israel rebelled and did not obey God’s command.
This is what God said:
“But they rebelled against me, and would not hearken unto me: they did not every man cast away the abominations of their eyes, neither did they forsake the idols of Egypt:... they walked not in my statutes, and they despised my judgments.” -vs. 8-13.
What man needed was a much simpler pattern. And because God loves us so much, He provided this pattern by giving to us His Son, Jesus Christ
In Colossians 1:15 we read that Jesus “is the image of the invisible God.” Yet He chose to take upon Himself human form and live among men. In this way Christ provided an example we can easily follow. He taught us how to love one another and what it means to be totally surrendered to God’s will.
Yes, Christ is the perfect pattern, and He is with us always. If you want to enjoy the divine relationship God intended for you, you can.
First, accept Christ as your personal Saviour. Make Him the pattern for your life. Then’ stay “pinned to the pattern,” and you’ll not have to worry about making a mistake.