God Disappointing Us

Then Moses said to the LORD, “See, You say to me, ‘Bring up this people!’ But You Yourself have not let me know whom You will send with me. Moreover, You have said, ‘I have known you by name, and you have also found favor in My sight. Now therefore, I pray You, if I have found favor in Your sight, let me know Your ways that I may know You, so that I may find favor in Your sight. Consider too, that this nation is Your people.

And He said, “My presence shall go with you, and I will give you rest.”

Then he said to Him, “If Your presence does not go with us, do not lead us up from here.”
— Exodus 33:12-16

In a previous post, we see that the people are disheartened because God has just given them a “no confidence” vote. Here, not long after that, Moses goes in to talk with God… and Moses isn’t very happy with God at the moment. The meaning of what Moses is saying is stronger than the words he’s using. He’s either falling all over himself to show respect to God (which is not a bad thing), or his words have been sanitized a little bit for the Holy Scriptures. Moses isn’t happy because God called him to deliver the people… and it’s been a lot of heartache for Moses. The people are like children, constantly whining. And on top of that, Moses is typically having to deliver the people from God. This isn’t the job that he signed on for.

So, Moses is bringing his complaint to God: “Are You with me, or not? You said that you were in this! Things are not going well, and it’s stressing me out. Are You going to do this thing, or not? Are You with me? Are You going to show me where to go and how to do it? Is it going to be like this forever?”

God says, “Yes. I’m with you. I’ll stay with you. It won’t always be like this.”

To which Moses responds, “You better mean it. Because if you don’t, I don’t want any part of it.”

I identify with this exchange. There was a time that I thought, “If I’m with God (or God is with me)… then everything should go smoothly and I’ll always walk in success.” Moving forward, even though I was faithful, things went badly very quickly. I was more than a little ticked at God. And most of the time, I really want to know just one thing: God, are You with me or not? Was it you that I heard, or have I fooled myself? I don’t want to go on unless I know that this is really your thing.

However the exchange goes, you won’t get your answer unless you are regularly going into the Holy Place to worship God.