Seeing the invisible...

"Now therefore, I pray You, if I have found grace in Your sight, show me now Your ways, that I may know You and that I may find grace in Your sight." — Exodus 33:12

- Notice the distinction Moses makes between knowing God’s ways and knowing God Himself: “Show me Your ways, then I will know You.” This means we cannot claim to truly know God if we are ignorant of His ways. To know someone’s ways is to understand how they respond in the different circumstances of life.

- Psalm 103:7 says about God: “He made known His ways to Moses, His deeds to the children of Israel.” In other words, the Israelites saw the acts God performed, but Moses understood the deeper motivations of God’s heart, the reasons behind His actions.

The Lord promised Moses: “My presence will go with you” (Ex. 33:13), meaning: “I Myself will not leave you.”When God’s presence accompanies our actions, all the energy we once spent worrying and planning is released and returned to God in praise and effective service. The result of His presence is found in the following promise: “I will give you rest.” Entering into God’s rest does not mean becoming inactive, but that God Himself works to help us accomplish our task. That is why Jesus invites us in Matthew 11:28: “Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”

Jesus teaches that He gives us rest when we learn to live in His presence, which is why it is so important for each of us to come to Him—that is, to enter and remain in His fellowship.

Yet God is more concerned with the state of our hearts than with the activity of our hands! We could even say that what we become with Him is far more important than what we do for Him. God longs for our love and our communion with Him.

While I was busy every day working to advance the Kingdom of God through messages and meetings, God made me understand personally that what He desired of me above all was an investment in seeking Him (His presence, my closeness, my attachment to His Word ) far more than the work I could accomplish for Him ! And I believe that is what He desires from each of us!

I believe that if our zeal for activities surpasses our devotion to His person, there will be times when God Himself will hinder our enthusiasm. Can God place obstacles in the way of our tasks if they take more space than our attachment to Him? I am reminded of what God says in Amos 5:4: “Seek Me and live!” In other words, the quality of our life is proportional to our diligence in communion with the Lord!

Someone once said, “It is out of love that God delivers us from the boundless momentum of our zeal, and deliberately dries up our vigor and our service for Him.”

- To conclude, God delights in being our source—the One who makes us succeed, the One who gives victory. And sometimes He uses our failures, our disappointments, and our weaknesses to work within our hearts and produce in us a deeper dependence on Him. Perhaps this is why the apostle Paul testified in 2 Corinthians 12:10: “That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” He knew, more than anyone, that in certain desperate situations his strength could only come from God, and certainly not from himself!

Franz