Source Amnesia

Exodus 33:14 And He said, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” 15 Then he said to Him, “If Your Presence does not go with us, do not bring us up from here."

Moses, someone the bible says was the humblest of men (Num 12:3) and yet he too had his own issues. I can’t help but remember what happened to him when he went up to the mountain and was in the presence of the Lord. What it would be like to be face to face, one on one with God in such a manner, where he “speaks face to face as a man speaks to his friend.” Could you imagine? Must have been pretty awesome, majestic, scary and glorious all at the same time, standing in the presence of God and Him talk to you clear as day.

The part that always gets me is later on in Exodus where he covers his face with a veil because he doesn’t want the children of Israel to be discouraged. That spoke to me. Moses fades. Moses needed that constant replenishing as do we. How many times do we begin to rise up to something and as soon as we hit the top, we often forget God. We forget that He got us there, we forget all His work, we forget His hands, we forget Him.

I find comfort though in verses like 2 Tim 2:13, though we might be faithless, He will remain faithful. I think something a lot of us miss out on these days is God. No seriously, we miss out on Him. We are very good at remembering we are forgiven, we are good at remembering we have grace, we love the idea of having mercy and we enjoy every last one of our blessings, however we miss out sometimes on one key thing: God. Notice in the verse above, Moses wasn’t promised anything outside of His Presence. That was it.

I aspire to be the kind of leader Moses was. Though he didn’t always glow with the glory, though he stuttered, though he was at his beginnings over zealous and over confident he still prayed, still lead the children and in order that they wouldn’t know the glory was fading, he veiled himself, so that they wouldn’t lose hope. Moses even went so far as to be willing to have his name removed from the book of life for the sake of those he was leading. Moses may not have always had the best speech, he may not have had the best wife, he may not have always made the wisest decisions, however, he had one thing, and he knew he had it well, God’s Presence.

Let us this day remember the Forgiver, let us remember the Giver of grace, the Merciful whose mercies are made new every day. Though we might sometimes fall out of touch with the forgiver, though we might sometimes fall out of touch with the Grace Giver, don’t ever think He has fallen out of touch with you. Though you may be faithless, He will remain faithful. You are still forgiven, you are still under grace, and those mercies, they are new EVERY morning.

You probably heard it a million times during Christmas, but I’ll say it again, and hopefully it’ll carry more weight for you this time around.

“It is not about the presents, it is all about the Presence” – a million different people