Tassels To The Left

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ay 25, 1985 stands in my memory as one of the most important events in my life.  On that day, in front of parents, family members, and friends, I walked across the stage and received my college diploma.  Since our college was small, we held the ceremony outside on the front lawn underneath the trees.  Our registrar, Dr. Burts, had taken great pains to explain to us over and over again the proper procedure for receiving the diploma from the president and the proper manner in which we were to conduct ourselves.

Finally, the moment came and we walked out of the main building, through the faculty, and took our places.  There was much pomp and circumstance.  The orchestra played, all the faculty members were present in their hoods and gowns, all the guests arrived on time, and the keynote speaker was warmed up and ready to go.  The stage was decked with the banners and flags of the college and the entire community, from the college president to the local soda shop owner, attended the event.

After a few songs, after recognizing several people who had made contributions to the college, and after the keynote address, it was time to receive our degrees.  We all listened intently for our names to be called. That was the signal to walk across the stage and receive the diploma in our left hand, not forgetting to shake the president’s hand with our right.  As soon as we received the diplomas, we remembered to perform the last gesture that would make the ceremony complete.  After receiving the diploma, we were to change our tassels from the right of the mortar board to the left, signifying we had graduated with a college degree.

The idea of the tassel, however, is not a recent one.  Would it surprise you to know that the Old Testament actually talks about tassels and has a specific purpose for them?  Let’s take a quick look at a passage from the book of Numbers and see what God has in mind when he instructs the Israelites to put tassels on their garments.

In Numbers 15:39, the Scriptures tell us, "It shall be a tassel for you to look at and remember all the commandments of the LORD, so as to do them and not follow after your own heart and your own eyes, after which you played the harlot.”  Here, God is talking about the prayer shawl that was used to cover the heads of the people.  It was a single cloth with tassels along the edge of the garment.  Notice the role these tassels were to play in the prayer life of God’s children.

The tassel served as a reminder of God’s commandments.  The people were always to keep God’s commandments in their minds and in their hearts.  They were to remember the mighty acts God performed in bringing them out of Egypt and they were never to forget to place God first in their lives and to follow his commands.  But God didn’t want the people just to remember his commandments; he wanted them to follow them and to obey them.  He knew that if the people got their eyes off of him and on the things of the world, they would encounter great hardship and misery.  The same is true for us today.  Unless we keep God foremost in our lives, we run the risk of breaking fellowship with him and encountering all kinds of trials, difficulties, and outright catastrophes along life’s road.

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s there a tassel in your life today?  Is there something to remind you of God’s great love and care for you?  When you come to God in prayer do you remember how much he loves you and how much he wants the very best for you?  Have you turned your tassel to the left?  Have you graduated and increased in your knowledge of the living God? Why not start today?