Tent of Meeting

  • Mike Rydman
  • Nov 29, 2007

Tent of Meeting

 

While reading in Exodus this morning I took notice of the relationship Moses had with God. Moses was a busy man and he kept himself busy with leading his people away from the Egyptians and through the desert, finding food and water, being the usual target of their complaints, and settling the disputes they had with each other. He also had time to climb up mountains, and come back down with stone tablets on which God wrote important stuff He wanted the people to know and do. All this was done while attempting to guide the people to humbly acknowledge God and His wonders in their midst.

 

Like any good leader, Moses knew he didn't always know what to do, or how to do it. Moses knew he needed guidance and a plan. He was well aware of his own short-comings as a man, and that his short-comings were no excuse not to fulfill his role and responsibility to lead. God had called Moses to lead God's people, and God had no intention of letting him off the hook.

 

In Chapter 33 of Exodus I stumbled on a short passage that describes how Moses would draw away to meet with God. At each campsite Moses would carry a tent out to some distance away from the campsite (that housed the estimated 1.2 Israelites) and set it up. He called this place the "Tent of Meeting," and it was in that tent that Moses would meet with God. The people back at camp would see the cloud that led them each day settle on that Tent of Meeting, so they knew that Moses was in fact having a conversation with God, Himself.

 

Something about these meetings, both the frequency of these meetings and the quality of these meetings resulted in something wonderful between God and Moses; they became friends. Exodus 33:11a says that "the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend." In the course of Moses asking where to go, what to do and how to do it they became friends.

 

Not too many verses later in the same chapter Moses quotes God's affirmation of their friendship in saying, Yet you (God) have said, ‘I know you (Moses) by name, and you have also found favor in my sight.'" It is at this point in my reading this morning that I stopped to ponder what it must have been like for Moses to know he had found favor in the sight of Almighty God - and to have God tell him as much.

 

What are also worth pondering are Moses' next words: "Now, therefore, if I have found favor in your sight, please show me now your ways, that I may know you in order to find favor in your sight."

 

A couple of thoughts here; It is instructive to me that Moses wanted to know "God's ways." This seems to be in contrast to simply asking God what he (Moses) should do next. Rather than know what to do, Moses wanted to know what God would do.

 

Secondly, Moses' request of God equates knowing God in order to find favor with God. So often I am guilty of trying to please God in what I'm doing, or intend to do, and I ask God to help me to do the things I do better. Moses seems to have taken a different approach by stating that knowing God and how God does things would result in being favorable to God. Moses does not ask for success or even sustainability; he instead asks to see what God is doing.

 

I often forget that God is at work, in me, in our church and in our city. While I shamefully relegate God to an interested observer God is rather busy doing the kinds of things that separates His work from anyone else's efforts, including my own. Moses didn't ask God to teach or explain His ways to Moses; Moses asked to SEE God's ways, almost like asking God for a new level of vision.

 

This has become my new prayer - that God would also give me the ability to see what He is doing. As I go to my own "tent of meeting" each morning I am asking God to help me take my eyes off of myself and instead look to see Him. And in so doing, I too want to find favor in His sight.

 

Wouldn't it be incredible to meet with God face to face? Wouldn't it be otherworldly to talk with God like friends talk? Wouldn't it be astounding to see God's ways, and know that He regards us with favor?

 

And to think this no longer requires the erection of a tent...