Want to Audaciously Ask This?!

A Cadbury egg caves into gooey bites in my fingertips. Creamy white and yellow center pools, like nectar, in a dip of the chocolate egg shell. I grin and swirl chocolate on my tongue, savoring every taste.

Have you been squirreling away chocolate Easter treats to eat too?

A silver grey sky hangs in low Emily Dickenson-style: “the sky is low, the clouds are mean, a travelling flake of snow, across a barn or through a rut, debates if it will go…” 

Three naked maple trees stand eerily still in my backyard after yesterday’s tumultuous high winds had thrown them back and forth for hours. Cardinals, robins, and black-capped chickadees sing of the morning, likely commenting on the storm to come.

A giant snow-magedon storm of six to twenty-four inches of projected snowfall, depending on zones, is heading from western United States to Minnesota and Midwestern states. With weather warnings of rapidly-accumulating heavy wet snow and fierce winds creating blizzard-like conditions Saturday night and throughout Sunday, we’re bracing for the storm.

Anticipating possible power outages, I fill water containers, try to keep phones fully charged, make a mental note of where all the candles and lighters are, and have already ordered groceries, which I’ll pick up soon.

My husband is due to preach this Sunday, with our Lead Pastor out of town, and my responsibilities for the Sunday Morning Bible Study lesson on Exodus and then our youth missions training meeting after church are on my mind.

We check the weather often and he stays in contact with other staff, as they watch weather reports and watch to see if we indeed cancel Sunday’s church to keep people safe.

Outside, the birds have gone silent for a moment, and the trees stand motionless under a grey sky.

I pull my Bible nearer and dive into Exodus chapters 33 and 34. In these chapters, Bible patriarch Moses in 1446 BC is having a deep conversation with the God of the universe. Both God and Moses are deeply hurt and angered by a blatant debauched betrayal of God by the people in the valley that God had just rescued. God’s heart is raw, sad, hurt.

Moses, who has just had forty days and nights in God’s presence on a mountain-top, presses in for more of God.

“If you are pleased with me,” he tells God, “teach me your ways so that I may know you and continue to find favor with you. Remember that this nation is your people.”

God replies, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”

And “presence” in Hebrew is “face.” So God has just said, My Face, my Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.

Moses presses in all the more boldly, interceding for the rebellious-hearted people in the valley, calling God’s continued tender forgiving Presence to encompass all of them, and not just Moses himself.

Jehovah God responds, “I will do the very thing you have asked, because I am pleased with you and know you by name.”

And then, without even a thank you recorded here — which makes me curious– Moses asks another bold thing of God.

“Now show me your glory.”

The Hebrew word for “glory” is “kavod/kabod,” meaning “weight, glory,” splendorous, heaviness, abundance.

Moses audaciously asks the God of the universe, Please show me your splenderous weighted abundance, which is like a glorious weighted blanket of beauty that drapes this world, this life, this moment, in abundant radiance, wonder, usually unseen to the visible eye, except in rare glimpses. 

And God agrees to show him part of his splendorous glory, implying that Moses can’t handle all of it.

He tells Moses, “There is a place near me where you may stand on a rock. When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I pass by. Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back; but my face must not be seen.”

God also says, “I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the LORD, in your presence.”

This conversation between God and Moses continues, yet I am still soaking in this part of it.

           Abba God, I worship you. I love you. God, like Moses asked, If you are pleased with me, please teach me your ways, so I may know you and continue to find favor with you. Please send me your Presence, your face, and give me rest. And Abba God? I want to go bolder in, deeper in with you too. 

         Please show me your glory, your weighted abundant splendor that blankets this world, this place, this moment with you. Cover me with your hand, and pass all of your goodness in front of me. Say your name aloud in my presence. And thank you for your mercy, compassion, goodness, and forgiveness. Forgive us when we turn aside to lesser things so easily, and reframe my heart to seek boldly after you and your face, your presence. 

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Jennifer speaks often at conferences, churches, retreats, MOMCo/MOPS/MomsNext groups,  camps, home school co-ops and more. She loves getting to know people and making new friends.