That's the question I ask myself often ... "How close am I to God?" We know from Psalm 34:18 "The Lord is close to the brokenhearted;he rescues those whose spirits are crushed." So ... is my spirit crushed or proud? Do I approach God offering all I am or do I try to make God into the image I understand? These are the questions of Exodus 33. The people of Israel have just been found worshiping a golden calf during the time Moses was with God receiving the 10 commandments. God is both angry and disappointed with the actions of the people. Just a few miles from Egypt, delivered by 10 plagues and the crushing tide of the Red Sea ... brought out of Egypt ... the people chanting "we will do everything the Lord has said." I can sometimes see how these things happen. People are anxious about a coming event. There is unrest in the world. There are unknowns happening in the church. They want to be in control. They want decisions and events to follow their prescription because they want the future to conform to their understanding. God, on the other hand, seems to want us to do something outside of the norm. He desires something that doesn't trust in our wits or the natural. Instead He calls us to trust Him and to believe in the God of the supernatural. Why is this so hard when we have seen miracles and we claim to trust in the miracles of Scripture? Still, we do what the people of Israel do. We choose the golden calf over the supernatural and unpredictable presence of God. Bible story after Bible story. Church after church. Christian after Christian I see this story repeat. It is a puzzlement. So ... what do we do?
I believe we do what we always do. We make a choice and live in the aftermath of that choice. The choice is this:
1) We seek God's presence and fully invest in following, giving up our expert and perfect plans for His will, His uncertain path. We buy into His perfect direction given to us at His pace, in His way and on His terms. This path gives up our dreams and joins in His dreams. It is dangerous and we might lose everything we hold dear. We will catch a fleeting glimpse of God's backside and glow with the blinding light of that glimpse. We will be changed forever! I hope I could say what Pastor Mike Yaconelli said, "If I were to have a heart attack right at this moment, I hope I would have just enough air in my lungs and just enough strength in me to utter one last sentence as I fell to the floor: "What a ride!" My life has been up and down, careening left then right, full of mistakes and bad decisions, and if I died right now, even though I would love to live longer, I could say from the depths of my soul, "What a ride!"
2) We do what the crowds did in Exodus and again in the Gospels. We could stand at a safe distance, never in danger of getting burned by the light of Christ. Never seeing the glory of God but living a perfectly and logical and safe life. Our faith would remain external ... something we can understand and control. We might even be seen by our friends and family as being a "good Christian."
As I have pondered these two choices I ask myself the question ... "Do I desire to impress my family and friends with my faith or do I fall on my knees before a holy God and say, "I am undone because I am a man of unclean lips."
Some of you will understand that I am down with sliding into life and death with my foot on the floorboard and my hair blowing in the wind shouting at the top of my lungs, "Man, what a ride!" Wanna come?
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