God leads, we follow. God stays, we stay.

No solicitors permitted

After the lengthy explanations of exactly how God commands Moses to build his tabernacle, in Exodus 40:33 “Moses finished the work.”  It is right after this that the glory of the Lord indwells his Tent of Meeting. 

No one is allowed to enter once the glory of the Lord fills the tabernacle.  Even Moses, the very man who God spoke with face to face (Exodus 33:11) is not allowed to enter.  Moses previously asked to see the glory of the Lord and was allowed a glimpse from behind (Exodus 33:22).  Even then, God hid him behind a rock and protected him with his hand.  This Moses, the mighty leader of Israel who brought them out of bondage in Egypt – even he was not allowed to enter the tabernacle.

Exodus 40:33-38, NIV

³³ Then Moses set up the courtyard around the tabernacle and altar and put up the curtain at the entrance to the courtyard. And so Moses finished the work.

           

³⁴ Then the cloud covered the Tent of Meeting, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle.  ³⁵ Moses could not enter the Tent of Meeting because the cloud had settled upon it, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle.

³⁶ In all the travels of the Israelites, whenever the cloud lifted from above the tabernacle, they would set out; ³⁷ but if the cloud did not lift, they did not set out--until the day it lifted. ³⁸ So the cloud of the LORD was over the tabernacle by day, and fire was in the cloud by night, in the sight of all the house of Israel during all their travels.

To very generically summarize the wanderings of Israel, they went wherever and whenever the cloud/fire went.  If it went, they went.  If it stayed they stayed.  They ate manna from heaven, and it was a glorious vacation in the desert from their decades and centuries of oppression making the same amount of bricks from less and less material. 

The Israelites should have been satisfied, because life was simple.  Food from God, go where God goes.  Unfortunately, the whole reason they wandered around was because their hard hearts prevented them from entering the land promised to them, and so God decided to wait for a new generation to bless. 

It’s understandable that God leads, and you pack up camp and follow for a few days.  Week later, the same thing.  However, I could imagine that after a few weeks, months, perhaps even years at one spot that frustration would kick in.  Gossip spreads.  When will we leave?  Do we have to pack up again?  The cloud of the glory of the Lord sits there, seemingly never going to move.  The fire at night is a reminder of the glory of God, but also of frustration of the endless waiting for God to make up his mind.  The “any second” of the cloud lifting up is an endless waiting game, the celestial cloud merely playing chess with their lives moving them around as he sees fit, whenever he sees fit.

Leading and Following

But on to my point – and that is following God whenever he leads, and waiting for him to lead whenever you would rather go.  To clarify, this is a theological concept – so it needs to be applied carefully.  In most circumstance, God does not lead by divinely obvious signs, but rather He gives us wisdom as to which path to take.  Having wisdom from heaven in the background, let’s apply some of the concepts of the passage.

God goes, we follow.

 Simple enough, but its implications are enormous!  I know a pastor who purposefully keeps his and his family’s belonging stored carefully.  He keeps as minimal debt as possible, so that if God leads him somewhere he is already prepared to move.  Indeed, this did happen and he moved to pastor a church near me.  I imagine his preparedness tremendously helped, and he was able to pastor full-time without taking a salary initially.  God leads, but this man is already prepared to follow.

God stays, we stay.

It’s enough to say we’ll go wherever God leads us, as we sing praise songs in church, and mean it with most of our heart.  It’s another thing entirely to say we will stay until God makes it obvious to move on.  (Again, keeping in mind the whole wisdom thing in determining God’s will). 

Perhaps we moved and followed God and now things are harder than we possibly imagined.  We’d like to move on, but that hovering cloud covering the glory of the Lord has not pointed us to go anywhere and isn’t going to anytime soon.  We’re willing to follow God, but are we willing to stay for God?