Saturday, January 09, 2010

Show Me Your Glory

Having a 2 1/2 year old daughter is a lot of fun.  I love the opportunity to get down on the floor and play with her.  Just this morning, we played house in her Elmo Tent that she got for Christmas.  We would pretend to fall asleep and then she'd wake up to answer the phone.  What is really remarkable about Abbie is the way in which she studies Andrea and myself.  She touches our eyes, our noses, our mouths.  She copies the words that we say.  Even today, when I was cleaning the bathroom, she pretended to clean the bathroom right beside me.  Abbie is actively seeking to know her parents in the fullest and to learn from us all she can.

Abbie has learned about the many pictures of family throughout our house and we'll often go through each picture and name the people in them.  When I leave on roadtrips to school or other places, Abbie has a picture of me that she carries around.  When I'm gone, we'll talk on the phone and she'll tell me about her day in all her 2 1/2 year old details!  But nothing compares to being face to face, nose to nose is conversation with Abbie.  Phone calls cannot replicate what goes on when we are together.  Abbie knows this, as any child does, and desires for mommy or daddy to come home when we've been away because it's better to have a relationship face to face. 

In Exodus 33, we are told that Moses talked to God face to face as one speaks to a friend.  This is an amazing picture of a relationship with God.  Moses' visits we not filled with prayer request for sick aunts, lost dogs, or unsettled relationships.  Moses questions God and even reminds God that "this nation is your people."  Moses does not want to go anywhere without God's Presence because it is God's Presence with the Israelites that distinguishes them from the rest of the people throughout the earth.

Here is what is remarkable about this account- Moses asks for more.  He says, "Now show me your glory."  Moses already speaks to God as if speaking to a friend.  He wants more.  He hungers for more.  In boldness, he asks for me.  Now God knows better and says that Moses cannot see the glory of God (who could stand before God's glory??), but will allow Moses to see God's back.  From seeing the back of God- Moses is changed and his face becomes so radiant the the people are afraid of him.  Moses will have to wear a veil when he is around the Israel people. 

I am moved that Moses wanted more.  Moses want to know God in the most intimate of ways.  Moses sought after God each day, relating with God as a friend speaks to a friend.  If I'm honest, I cannot say this about my relationship with God.  Certainly, I desire more of God in my life, but reading this I find that I may not have the boldness of Moses to ask God to see His glory.  A.W. Tozer writes that "almost everyday of my life I am praying that 'a jubilent pining and longing for God' might come back on the evangelical churches."  It's time to pray for myself that I might know God as Moses knew God.  That God might place in me a longing and hunger for God's presence in my life.  That the Church would long to know God in this way.  I don't want to settle for a photograph from God, or a phone call- but a desire to know God face to face, as a friend speaks to a friend.

God,
I want to see Your glory.  I want to speak face to face with You.  Show me and the Church Your presence that we might not want to be anywhere else.  Give us a hunger and thirst for more of You in our lives everyday. 
Amen

"The man that has the most of God is the man who is seeking the most ardently for more of God..."
A.W. Tozer

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