Heaven’s Side of the Tapestry

by Marvin Bublitz

Lately, I’ve been admiring a lovely tapestry I was given some years ago. Tapestries are wonderful things, woven together into an intricate beautiful scene. Each time you look at it, you see a different aspect than before.

Some people lay tapestries on their bed, hang them on a wall, or drape them over a chair. But no matter how they are displayed, tapestries present a gorgeous display of intricate workings. Ponder the amount of detail which goes into such art. It is truly a work of love. Many tapestries are handed down in the family over generations—a work of love and art to be admired and appreciated for a long time. 

Not everyone, however, appreciates the beauty or the work that goes into tapestries. And the same can be said of many things in this life. How often we either take things for granted or complain about them. When things are going well, we can easily take the credit. When things take a turn, we look for someone to blame. Surely it can’t be my fault. 

Often, when we look at the things of this world, it seems to us like the backside of a tapestry. We see nothing but a jumbled mess of total confusion. When bad things happen to us, we are a jumbled mess of emotions. This can often lead us to despair. 

Such is the case if we look at things the wrong way. If we focus on ourselves or our situation, then we are looking at the back side of the tapestry. It is an easy trap to fall into—and the devil works to push us into that trap. He convinces us that our situation is proof that God does not care about us. He whispers: “Why would God let this happen to you if He really loved you?” You are not alone in such attacks. So has the devil attacked the people of God since the Garden of Eden. Even great prophets like Elijah were not immune to his assaults.

Consider Isaiah 55:8-9: “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.”

[While] we look at the tapestry from the back side, the Lord looks from the front.

See, while we look at the tapestry from the back side, the Lord looks from the front. Or, to put it another way, the Lord looks at things from heaven’s side while we look from earth’s side.

Consider suffering. When we see it from the Lord’s viewpoint, “we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Romans 5:3-5).

Likewise, we need to see the Lord’s discipline from the front side: “And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? ‘My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by Him. For the Lord disciplines the one He loves, and chastises every son whom He receives.’ It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, that we may share His holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees” (Hebrews 12:5-12). 

In the same way, we see the death of a loved one now from the back side as a jumbled bunch of emotions. But from the front: “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints” (Psalm 116:1). Through death, God is taking His lamb home.

For now, we see from the back side—from earth’s view. In time all will be revealed, and we will see the beauty from heaven’s side: “For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known” (1 Corinthians 13:9-12). 

When Satan tempts you to see things from the wrong side, read Psalm 37 and pray the Lord enlighten your view. “Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act” (Psalm 37:5).

—————

Print this article