FOLLOWING GOD’S PRESENCE

Have you ever watched children who have so many gifts given to them that they are almost totally oblivious to the Giver of those presents? Too often we as Christians want God’s “presents” without His “presence”. I always know when we are like this because when the presents stop coming, we get mad at God. Faith in faith will get us nowhere, and often faith in people will not get us much further. That doesn’t mean that we should not trust people, but people are not our source and never can be. Only God is our source (that’s part of what it means for Him to be God) and only faith in God is an effective faith. Faith, however, is always something that is current. It is not good at traveling long distances. If we are far from God’s presence, faith simply doesn’t work. We can strive and struggle and twist ourselves into all kinds of shapes trying to believe and to take hold of God’s promises. However if we have moved away from His presence, our faith has nothing to take hold of. We find ourselves wondering what went wrong.
“The cloud (God’s Presence) might stay over the Tent for two days, a month, or a year. As long as it stayed, the people camped, but when it lifted, they moved.”
(Numbers 9:22) (CEV)Our life with God is never static. It is always about moving, about growth, not about getting comfortable in one place (spiritually and sometimes physically) and settling down. It is a “walk”, not a “sit”. (Yes, we are seated with Christ in heavenly places, but that is a different dimension.) Like the ancient Israelites, we need to learn to watch the cloud. We need to move when God moves, and to stand still when He stands still. We need to change our focus, so that the most important thing is not where we are, but where He is. When we focus on where we are, we start looking at our surroundings. Either they are very nice and we want to stay put – which becomes a problem when God wants to move – or they are anything but nice and we want to get out of there – which becomes a problem when God wants to stay put! When we focus on where He is, then that is where we want to be, whatever the circumstances surrounding us may be. Faith is sometimes a struggle and the blessing of God may seem to have moved.
Have you perhaps run ahead, eager to get on with the next thing, when God wants to linger where you have been, maybe to deal with some issues in your life, maybe to build deeper relationships, maybe simply to wait for His timing? Stop, and go back to God’s presence. His timing will surely come, and when it does it will be perfect. More importantly, when we go into His presence we will also be in His timing.
Others maybe have lingered behind when God was moving on. You have wanted to cling to what has been, to live in the old anointing. You have heard people say, “Life just isn’t what it used to be.” A friend of mine used to say, “God moves. Then man turns it into a movement, then he turns it into a monument, and finally man turns it into a mausoleum.” Yesterday’s anointing was wonderful – for yesterday. It was not made for tomorrow. If God has moved, then no matter how good yesterday was, we need to get up and leave it behind, and follow that cloud!
The New Year is just ahead of us with many unknowns in it. The cloud is symbolic of God. If we purpose ahead of time to move whenever God is moving and wait whenever God isn’t moving, we will see God work in spectacular ways throughout the coming year. He is always at work in and around us. May we keep our eyes on Him and not the unknown. And remember: GOD’S PRESENCE is more valuable than GOD’S PRESENTS!
Selah…
Al Yoder
12/29/2010