The Sacred Place of Rest

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Shiloh--A Hebrew word meaning "place of rest". It is an ancient city in the land of Ephraim (which is one of the twelve tribes of Israel), and is the place where Joshua and the Israelites first set up the Tabernacle after God delivered the Promised Land of Canaan to them. What an incredible statement that God made--the first place His people would gather together to worship Him is in the "place of rest."

On March 26th of 2004, I happened to be reading this story about Shiloh in Joshua 18. For whatever reason, I found myself with a ruler in one hand and map of ancient Israel in the other. Using the ruler as a scale, I measured where Shiloh was located in the tribal allotments of Israel; and then using the same scale, I plotted where the proverbial "Shiloh" would fall in the city of Mt. Juliet. It fell right across the street from Mt. Juliet High School--and for some reason, I pursued this information no further.

A little over a year since that day in March of last year (last Tuesday to be exact), I'm sitting at Cafe Express in Mt. Juliet, which is an alternative rock (and jazz) music club, talking with the lady who runs it about doing a Battle of the Bands type thing for this big party that we're doing in June. She then informs me that she has been praying for a young man to come and build relationships with the young people who gather there on Saturday nights and to lead a Bible study & discussion there on Sunday nights. My thoughts--"WOW God! Finally...an answer to a plethora of prayers in one package. Here's where it gets REALLY exciting: Later that evening I realized something...Cafe Express is located EXACTLY where the plot on the map showed the proverbial Shiloh would be in Mt. Juliet. Oh and there's a music store next door to Cafe Express--guess what the name of it is...Shiloh Music.

So starting Sunday after next, our core group of people in this new church will be meeting at Cafe Express instead of Greg & Gina's home. So not the way we thought it'd go down, but God has made a habit of giving us more than we even asked for. What a detailed God we live in relationship with. Thank you Father, Daddy, Lord, Friend, Savior, and Provider for being so detailed and faithful. How crazy is this...the God we serve is fully capable of placing our first gathering place exactly, as it were, where the first gathering place of His people was...and to GIVE IT THE SAME NAME!?!?