“Please show me your glory.” - Exodus 33:18
I don’t know how your month is going, but my May has been full. I am grateful most of it has been good, but some has been heavy. There has been a steady demand of activities, appointments and obligations. I keep reminding myself to stay in the moment. As the theologian Farris Bueller once said, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”
Recently a good friend of mine drove through the area and called me about meeting him for lunch. Well… if you know me, I rarely turn down the offer of a good lunch. The running joke on our staff team is where is Chad eating lunch today...and that’s fair. I have been to some places around town enough where the manager and I are on first name basis.
My friend and I were catching up with the usual conversation starters, “How is work going?” and “How is your family doing?” My friend has a daughter who is only 15. She is an elite tennis player. He was telling me about all the traveling he and his wife do to watch her play. Then he looks me in the eyes and says, “But I could care less about the tennis, I just love to spend time with her.” I am not sure why or how, but the next sentence that came out of my mouth was something like this. “That’s cool man… sounds like when you are at those matches cheering for your daughter it is a picture of how God is showing up each day cheering for you as well.” He turns from me and begins to look out the window.
Let me pause right here…you need to know my friend, he is an internal processor. Nothing comes out of his mouth before he has had the opportunity to think about it. When he turns back to me. I see the white in his eyes has turned to red and tears are forming in his eyes.
After a brief pause that feels much longer than it is, he wipes the tears away from his eyes. And he says, “Chad, you know I have been asking God for some time to help me see Him as He is not who I make Him out to be, but I am moving so fast I think I am missing Him.” Then my friend says this sort of asking a question but making a statement, “So, God is like me watching my daughter play tennis, He is cheering me on when I am playing well or playing poorly.” By this time my friend has got me crying and the only thing I can say is, “I believe so.”
My conversation with my friend made me think about Moses. Remember when Moses, asked God to “show me your glory.” What was Moses asking? Moses was in a situation where he needed the reassurance that God was with him. You may find yourself in that same place, in a dessert, a place of doubting and discouragement. And just like Moses was asking God to remind him of his glory, we may ask for that as well in the chaos and uncertainty of life. When God shows His glory throughout the Bible, it not only represents His presence, but also His character.
God answers Moses. He places Moses in a cleft of a rock. Moses had one job…stay in the moment. While Moses stays in the moment, God does something special, “I Myself will make all My goodness pass before you and will proclaim the name of the Lord before you; and I will be gracious and will show compassion to whom I will show compassion” (Exodus 33:19). Could you imagine being Moses in that moment in time? Standing in the cleft of the rock and God showing up to remind you of who He is. Good, Gracious, and Compassionate!
We might not literally stand in the cleft of a rock these days like Moses of old. But my friend reminded me that when we ask, we better get ready because God will answer. God wants nothing more than to show His presence and character to His children.
This week you may be running around in the business of life checking off your to do list. One thing life has taught us is every week there is a mixed bag of good and hard. Let’s stay in the moment and ask God to show us His glory. Be assured that God will show up! Because He loves nothing more than to spend time with His children.