A Thought For The Week Of October 31, 2016

"Go up to the land flowing with milk and honey. But I will not go with you, because you are a stiff-necked people and I might destroy you on the way." (Exodus 33:3) I don't need Bible verses to always be comforting. Sometimes I like them to challenge me to try to figure out what exactly it is that they're saying. This is one such verse. What a disconcerting view of God is contained in just these few words: "I will not go with you." What? Really? Those were God's people, on their way to the land God had promised them, but now God was saying that he wouldn't go with them? How can God not go with them? Isn't God everywhere? Isn't God with us at all times? That's six questions marks I've used already! Perhaps the most unsettling aspect of the verse is the reason that God won't go with the people. Essentially - "I might destroy you if I do because you're so bloody stubborn!" It's a very human view of God who admits that his people make him so angry that he might not be able to control his anger. I don't like the idea of a God whose anger seems to be right on the edge of raging out of control, but perhaps what I like even less is what this verse says about us - about you and about me. If God is absent - or at least if God seems absent - perhaps it isn't God's fault. Perhaps it's ours. Perhaps we drive God away - or at least perhaps we drive God out of our conscious thinking so that God seems absent. Maybe that's what's going on here. The Book of exodus is a continuous telling and retelling of the story of God's people effectively forgetting about God. Maybe here the author is reflecting on his own sense of God's absence (rather than the reality of God's absence.) His conclusion is simple. God seems absent because we're stubborn and stiff-necked. Sometimes I wonder if we make it impossible for God to act because of our attitude - similar to the New Testament concept of quenching God's Spirit. I suppose the point might be that if God seems absent - don't blame God. We need to look inside and see what is in within ourselves that's shutting God out. Because God is always present; always near to those who want to experience him.