Exodus 33:8-9 NIV
And whenever Moses
went out to the tent, all the people rose and stood at the entrances to their
tents, watching Moses until he entered the tent. As Moses went into the tent, the pillar of
cloud would come down and stay at the entrance, while the Lord spoke with
Moses.
What Do You Think God Wants To Do With You?
A few weeks ago, it didn’t go well for me substitute
teaching. The class had acted pretty
badly and I struggled to maintain control over the group. They kept speaking when I told them to be
quiet, I had trouble explaining the material I was assigned to cover and
several of the kids were disrespectful.
I felt overmatched and inadequate.
Limping to my car, I asked God what was wrong with me. Everything about my life felt out of sorts
and in disarray. I opened the door and
plopped down in my seat, glad to have a few minutes of solitude. I sat before God in the sanctuary of my
little Honda and silently gave Him time to work in me.
Probably you too have needed time alone and it was a
welcome relief to find a spot where you could regroup. Perhaps you have felt psychologically drained
and wanted to get away where no one could interrupt your thoughts or agitate
you. Sometimes you have to retreat to
the bathroom to find solitude. Maybe it
is your car or your office or a park bench where you gather yourself. Many
retreat to their bedrooms. You might sit
in front of your computer without noticing anything that’s there, lost in your
thoughts. Do you need time alone on a
regular basis? What does solitude do for
you? Have you found it helpful?
The Bible makes it clear that we are never alone,
even when we are in the loneliest of places.
The book of Hebrews even insists that we are surrounded “by a great
cloud of witnesses.” Yet, due to our
lack of awareness of everything supernatural happening all around us, we ignore
both angels and demons. When we are by
ourselves with no physical beings nearby, we feel alone and quite honestly are
often quite grateful for those moments. However,
our difficulty perceiving the presence of God does not mean He is absent. The Lord promises He is with you at every moment
and solitude is not what is commonly thought.
If you realize that solitude is always you with God and never you just
by yourself, a great benefit to your life is possible.
The Gospel of Luke begins with an interesting story
that is only told by Luke. There was a couple
that was old and childless and the husband was one of many Jewish priests. Zechariah was chosen by lot to go into the
temple and burn the incense in the sanctuary.
Once when Zechariah's division was on duty and he was serving as
priest before God, he was chosen by lot, according to the custom of the
priesthood, to go into the temple of the Lord and burn incense. And when the time for the burning of incense
came, all the assembled worshipers were praying outside. (Luke 1: 8-10 NIV) Zechariah found himself alone in the inner
sanctum of the Temple but what he soon discovered was that his solitude was not
what it seemed. An angel suddenly
appeared in the room. When Zechariah
saw him, he was startled and was gripped with fear. (Luke 1:12 NIV) After the angel reassured him that he was not
in danger, the messenger from God gave him the joyous news that Zechariah and
his wife were going to conceive and have a baby. The angel made it clear that this was an
answer to their prayers. But this declaration
was too stupendous for Zechariah to believe, even if it did come directly from
an angel! Zechariah asked the angel,
"How can I be sure of this? I am an old man and my wife is well along in
years." (Luke 1:18 NIV)
After all these years of praying, Zechariah had
become hopeless. He no longer believed
it was possible that he and his wife could have a child. Yet here was the
revelation, coming to him in the solitary place where Zechariah thought he was
all alone. We see this same formula
again and again in Scripture. God lets
someone become alone and then He shifts that person’s life. When the Lord wanted to adjust the prophet
Ezekiel’s thinking, He pulled him aside.
Ezekiel describes this in the book he wrote. The hand of the Lord was upon me there,
and he said to me, "Get up and go out to the plain, and there I will speak
to you." (Ezekiel 3:22 NIV) How
did God say this to Ezekiel? Was it in
an audible voice that anyone could have heard or did God speak directly into
the prophet’s head? We don’t know but
what is clear is that the Lord sent Ezekiel off by himself to receive the
revelation. This is the normal
process. God waits until someone is
alone…or thinks he or she is alone…and then He does something new with that
person.
Consider the example of Isaiah. The Lord got him alone in the Temple and
there revealed Himself to the prophet. In
the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and
exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. (Isaiah 6:1 NIV) If God’s presence was not enough, there were
flying seraphs and shaking door posts and thresholds and the whole building
filled with smoke. Clearly Isaiah was
not alone and the Lord made that clear in a magnificent way. Immediately, with all the pageantry, what
struck Isaiah most was his sinfulness.
He let out a wail! "Woe
to me!" I cried. "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I
live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord
Almighty." (Isaiah 6:5 NIV)
When God meets you in the solitude, you must first face your Sin. It becomes clear as day when you are alone
with the Lord that you sin and sin badly.
You cannot go any further with the Lord unless you grasp the awful
nature of your sin and solitude magnifies it so that you see your sin clearly
when you become alone. If you have not seen
your sin and grown to hate it, you most likely have never been alone with
God. The Lord forces you to face your
sin. His very presence does that to you.
If you are alone with God, there are two revelations
that will come to you and they will carry the force of a great hurricane. You are sinful and only God can take away
your sin. Whatever was wrong with
Isaiah, whatever evil he saw in himself, it had to do with his mouth! Jesus said that it is not what goes into you
that is bad, it is what comes out of you that matters and clearly something was
coming out of Isaiah that was ugly and it had to do with his mouth. Immediately when Isaiah realized just how
wicked he was the Lord provided him with a live coal that took away the guilt
of his sin. Then one of the seraphs
flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the
altar. With it he touched my mouth and
said, "See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your
sin atoned for." (Isaiah 6:6-7
NIV)
If there is a single lesson to learn from this
passage, perhaps what rises above all is that only God can take away our guilt. God does the work. Here He touches the lips with the purifying
live coal. This was just a temporary
solution for only in the Cross is the guilt of our Sin removed altogether. When Christ came and became a part of us, He did
so to deal once and for all time with our Sin.
You cannot be alone with God and fail to realize your complete
dependence upon Him. In a crowd you can
feel secure and confident that you make it on your own. Alone with God though you know that is a fairy
tale, it is like thinking your heart is unnecessary or your brain does not
matter. Dependence upon God and reliance
upon Him to save you is the clearest sign you have been alone with Him. What is so striking about the Psalms is that
this is what you see in them at every turn.
You are dependent upon God to save you and there is no greater
determination you can make than to rely upon Him in everything you do.
Nearly always when there is a break in your
relationship with God, it is because there is a moral barrier that stands in
your way. God would not let Isaiah go
any further with Him until his mouth issues were addressed. Sometimes it is sexual immorality, other times
a bad temper or the unwillingness to forgive.
It might be cruelty that you possess or selfishness and greed or the
hard headed unwillingness to do what God has said to do. This barrier, whatever it might be must be
taken apart if you are to ever go any further with God. It is when you are alone with Him that this
is done. God penetrates your heart and
works out of you what sin has worked into you.
As you stay with Christ, alone just the two of you, a miracle
occurs. The love of God starts to become
your love, the peace of God becomes your peace and the joy that God has becomes
your joy. You cannot generate this
within yourself. Only Christ can do
it. Alone with God, no conversation, no
distracting phones or computers, just your mind and the Lord’s mind coming
together and in the miracle of Christ, you become transformed. God will want to make you alone with Him to
cleanse your actions and He will want to work out of you your sinful habits. In
solitude you will be made good, and clean and like God. In God’s grip, alone with Him in a quiet
place where He can get through to you, nothing will matter that mattered so
much to you before; not your accomplishments, not your gifts, not what you want
to make of your life. What will rise above everything else as you
stay with Him will be His love becoming yours as you remain alone with Him
wherever and whenever the Lord calls you to come to Him. Why not take a solitude break this week? Be alone with God for whatever time you can
give Him.