Episode Transcript
CONSECRATE
Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.
Jesus, I belong to you.
I lift up my heart to you.
I set my mind on you.
I fix my eyes on you.
I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice.
Jesus, we belong to you.
Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.
HEAR
Exodus 33:7–11 (NIV)
Now Moses used to take a tent and pitch it outside the camp some distance away, calling it the “tent of meeting.” Anyone inquiring of the LORD would go to the tent of meeting outside the camp. 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. Whenever the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance to the tent, they all stood and worshiped, each at the entrance to their tent. The LORD would speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend. Then Moses would return to the camp, but his young aide Joshua son of Nun did not leave the tent.
CONSIDER
But his young aide Joshua son of Nun did not leave the tent.
In those days, I think of Joshua as maybe somewhere between sixteen and twenty. He was Moses’s aide-de-camp. Why did Joshua go to the tent of meeting? Because Moses, his leader, went. Why did Moses go to the tent? To meet with God.
The LORD would speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend.
Why did Joshua not leave the tent when Moses left?
My hunch: Joshua was learning to meet with God, and something tells me the Lord would speak to Joshua face-to-face, as one speaks to a friend. Something tells me Moses actually invited Joshua into his meeting with God, and they shared in this face-to-face encounter with God and each other.
Growing up in the church, it never really occurred to me that going to church was meeting with God. And for the longest time, daily quiet time was not really a meeting with God. It was reading a devotion and saying a prayer (and slipping in and out of sleep if I’m honest). These practices of going to church and daily devotions were my faithfulness to the motions as I had learned them, but I’m afraid these faithful practices missed the movement of God altogether—well-grooved forms of faith but no power of God.
David inspired us: “My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?” (Ps. 42:2).
Joshua knew God because he met with God, day after day, year after year, face-to-face, as a person speaks with their friend. There comes a point in this journey, if we can stay awake with Jesus and deepen our awareness of his presence, our attention to his words, our attunement to his voice, and our attachment to his heart, that we will find him abiding in us all the time and we in him. Though we leave the tent, the meeting never stops. Moses left the tent, but he never left the meeting with God.
But his young aide Joshua son of Nun did not leave the tent.
Joshua was learning to meet with God.
Years later, when it mattered most, Joshua was able to give encouragement to others because he had the courage of God coursing through him.
Your heart longs for this. It’s the life we were made for—presencing the person of Jesus everywhere and all the time.
PRAY
Father, thank you for inviting us into the tent of meeting. And thank you for showing us that our very bodies are the tent—the place where our meeting with you can go on and on all the time. Teach us this way of abiding, of moving from awareness to attention to attunement to attachment to unceasing fellowship and communion with Jesus. Come, Holy Spirit, and break through the movements and motions and into the deep mystery of abiding in Jesus. In his name we pray, amen.
