We Will Move...When the Cloud Moves: Part Seven
Monday, May 28, 2012
Part Seven: The Cloud Provided a Constant Sermon on Mercy
However, I do fail…and often it seems.
There’s not a week that goes by that I don’t feel like I fail in some
way with this whole ordeal. I have
“good” days and “bad” days, though with God’s grace there really is no such
thing. I complain sometimes, just like
the children of Israel. I gripe,
too. I have lied, and perhaps have made
foolish decisions of desperation. I
carry around consequences to this day of failures in the past. And it pains my conscience when I think that
my family must bear the brunt of those consequences of my own doing.
I look back over the last ten years of my life and wonder how many of
my moves for “ministry” were not foolish decisions. There’s one or two I am absolutely certain
about. The rest are a mystery to
me. I have no doubt that my failure to
step out of my tent every morning and look continually to the cloud throughout
the day certainly did not create an atmosphere or environment where I was
listening to God and watching His hand.
I was often too eager to remove myself from some sort of pain,
difficulty or conflict. Consequently, I
would see mirages in the wilderness, mistaking the cloud for what only looked
like clouds. Insane moments of “what
if’s” seemed to carve out my reality in those seasons, and when I look back on
these times, never once was I really crossing through on dry ground.
Meanwhile I dragged my family through swampy lands, desperately wanting
to believe that I could see, or at least at some
point had seen the cloud. My family
followed so faithfully, believing in me, believing I was actually hearing God’s
voice and following the cloud. I am
positive that my wife was probably looking beyond me, believing in the God Who was leading me, even amidst my own
foolishness. Perhaps you can
relate…whether you’re a husband or a wife…or even if you’re a kid who followed
a dad like that!
Yet even in these seasons and decisions of my life the cloud offers a
daily sermon in mercy. An Israelite
could wake up in the morning, see the cloud, know that they were settled for
the moment, and then encounter some unfortunate circumstances that might have
turned him sour the rest of the day. He
then comes home, takes out his frustration on his wife and kids. He kicks the family goat, swears a little,
and goes to bed angry about it all, confused, frustrated, and irritated that
things turned out that way. But then, he
gets up the next morning, and because all
the tents in the nation were setup so that the front door opened to the
Tabernacle, he would see the cloud. And
then he would feel an overwhelming, fresh wave of mercy. Despite his sinful behavior and lack of trust
in God, the cloud was still there.
The cloud did not rise and settle based on the sins
of the people. Nehemiah
remembers the cloud even in his day. His
people had been given to slavery and bondage again, for the umpteenth time in
their nation’s history, and for the same thing over and over again:
idolatry. In Nehemiah’s day the Jews
were just beginning to be released from their bondage in Persia after seventy
years of captivity. Nehemiah was given
permission by the king to go and rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. After the wall was completed, they gathered
together to celebrate the next festival on the Jewish party calendar: the feast
of booths, known later on the book of Acts as Pentecost.
Ezra the priest read the law of God…from beginning to end…though not
all at one time. The people would gather
daily to listen to the reading of the Word, and then Ezra would explain what he
was reading and preach to the people.
After days of listening to the longest consecutive exposition of
Scriptures in history, the people fasted and confessed their sins.
This was followed by a group of leaders praying aloud. Their prayers were recorded for us in
Nehemiah 9. There they recount the
foolishness of their nation’s history.
God’s incredible creation, calling of Abraham, deliverance from Egypt,
giving of the law, and miraculous daily provisions were responded to with
pride, stubbornness, disobedience, and flat-out rebellion. And then they prayed this, in verses 17-21:
But you are a God of forgiveness, gracious and merciful, slow to become
angry, and rich in unfailing love. You
did not abandon them, even when they made an idol shaped like a calf and said,
‘This is your god who brought you out of Egypt!’ They committed terrible blasphemies.
But in your great mercy you did not abandon them to die in the wilderness. The pillar of cloud still let them forward by
day, and the pillar of fire showed them the way through the night. You sent your good Spirit to instruct them,
and you did not stop giving them manna from heaven or water for their
thirst. For forty years you sustained
them in the wilderness, and they lacked nothing. Their clothes did not wear out, and their
feet did not swell!
The constant presence of the cloud was a daily reminder of the constant
presence of God…despite their behavior.
God’s presence doesn’t ebb and flow with His people’s obedience and
disobedience. Why? Because a sacrifice had already been made on
behalf of their sins every year on the Day of Atonement, in addition to the
individual sin offerings the people would make throughout the days, weeks,
months, and years. God’s presence in the
cloud was there by sheer grace, because a satisfying offering had been made for
their sins obtaining forgiveness. That’s
why the cloud never, ever left them
all those years.
Today that grace still remains with us.
Jesus Christ was the once-and-for-all offering given to God, satisfying
the demands of the law of God, obtaining our forgiveness. That is why God’s presence in His Holy Spirit
never, ever leaves us throughout all our years.
Despite our sin, our failures, our mistakes, our rebellion, our disobedience,
the fact is that God will keep His promise to never leave us nor forsake us
(Deut. 31:6; Josh. 1:5; Heb. 13:5). He will
be with us always, to very end of the world (Matt. 28:20). That’s why even amid God’s discipline through
the bloodshed and chaos of the fall of Jerusalem, the prophet Jeremiah could
pray as he wept through what was only the beginning of an incredibly terrifying
transition for him at that time.
The thought of my suffering and homelessness is bitter beyond
words. I will never forget this awful
time, as I grieve over my loss. Yet I
still dare to hope when I remember this:
The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin
afresh each morning. I say to myself,
“The Lord is my inheritance; therefore, I will hope in him!” The Lord is good to those who depend on him,
to those who search for him. So it is
good to wait quietly for salvation from the Lord. (3:19-26).
About the Author: Rob is a entrepreneur in Statesboro, GA, where he envisions and pursues missional-shaped business for the kingdom. He and his wife Sherri have been married for 18 years and together have three sons and a daughter. Rob believes the mission of the gospel is summed up in four simple phrases: know God, obey Jesus, make disciples, and plant churches. This is the pursuit of his life, as well as the point of his blog.
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