The desire for more
There is a story in Exodus that I find myself going back to again and again. There is just something about it that catches me and inspires me. You can find it in Exodus 33.
After 40 days in God’s presence Moses has just been given the blueprint for humanity (also known as the 10 commandments), but arrived at the bottom of the mountain to find the Israelites had decided they could make a better God out of a gold calf. It was not their finest hour.
God was angry - very angry.
The people he had chosen to be his example for the rest of the world to follow had turned away from him before they had barely taken their first steps. It was over before it had begun.
God had had enough - and wanted out: “I will send an angel before you and drive out the [tribes]. Go up into the land flowing with milk and honey. But I will not go with you...”
God being God was going to be faithful to His promises. He would still give the Israelites the land that He said would be theirs. He would send an angel to clear out the tribes living in the land, and make sure that they would settle into the land. All that He had said would happen to the Israelites would happen, but He himself would not be there.
But for Moses - this isn’t enough:
“If Your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. How will anyone know you are pleased with me and your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?”
Let me translate this for you.
Moses says “NO! That’s not good enough!”.
Seriously.
Moses has the boldness (stupidity?) to tell God that he thinks he’s got it wrong.
But more than that.
Moses tells God that even if all the promises happen, even if everything is good and wonderful in the promised land - if God isn’t there its not worth it. He doesn’t want to move, he doesn’t want to take one step unless God is right there beside him.
Moses’ relationship with God was worth far more to him than any of the promises, than any of the fame, than any of the amazing things he would get to see.
This is why I keep coming back to it. This is why inspires me.
But it doesn’t end there.
The very next thing we read is that God changes His mind.
I don’t know how that fits with your theology - but its right there. God changes His mind.
Now - if I was Moses I’d be quickstepping out of the there with a smile on my face and a bounce in my step, but somehow he isn’t done. Maybe its the elation of the moment, maybe he feels he has God on the back foot, but he has one more thing he wants to say.
“Now show me your glory”.
Huh?
Moses knows that he has not seen enough of God.
Despite all the talks they have had, despite all that God has shown him, and all that God has done through him, Moses has not seen enough.
And so he asks for more.
He’s already proved that his priorities are the right way round - that his desire for God is greater than his desire for the things of God.
So now he asks for more.
Show me your glory, your presence - allow me to look at you, to see you, to feel you. Moses is showing a hunger, a desire, a longing for a new depth of relationship with God.
Do you see now why I love this story?
This guy is one of the heroes of our faith. He has seen things we can only dream of, he has communicated with God and heard things that no one else had heard before. But he knew he needed more. He knew it wasn’t enough. There was something inside him that still longed for more of God, that longed for something deeper.
So the obvious question is - do you want more of God?
When we take a step back and look at ourselves, can we honestly say that we desire a deeper relationship with Him? If we’re really honest, maybe we want the things of God more than relationship with God himself?
For the last while I’ve been really trying to increase my desire for more of God.
It started out by recognising that I needed to - that my passion had grown thin. You could say that I needed to want to want to want more of God. So I kept telling him that I wanted more of Him - probably more for myself to hear than anything else.
I want to be able to stand before God and say I’m not going unless you go with me. I want to have the face to say show me your glory and mean it. I want to want relationship with God above anything else that the world can offer me. I want my passion for Him to be so infectious that others get caught up in it along the way - that their passion for Him is stoked. I want to be completely comfortable when I’m in His presence, and completely uncomfortable when I’m not.
The bible speaks of the generation of those who seek God’s face. I want to be one of them. And I don’t mean in some itty bitty way - I want to be fully seeking after Him, all or nothing.
I guess where I’m going with this is that if we don’t want more of God, then we’ll never get more. Until we start asking, until we start longing, we’ll be caught up in the same old same old. Hitting the same depths, never going any deeper, never getting any closer to Him, and never seeing more of Him.
As a body, as the church, we need to start hungering for him more.
Jesus said He only said what he heard from the father, and did what the father told him.
That is supposed to be our inheritance too, it is supposed to be our experience of walking with God. But that depth of relationship is beyond us unless we start desiring God above all else. We need to prioritise intimacy with our heavenly Father.
We need to find the strength of Moses, the boldness and courage that he showed.
We need to respond to God in the way that he showed us is possible.
We need to be people who dare to say: “Show me your glory”.