Follow God's Fire and Cloud

Have you ever felt like you were wandering around in circles with no direction, no guide, and no map? When you go camping do you take walks out in the forest away from the campground? It’s like all those stories of lost hikers. They go for a day hike, have a plan of where they are going but inevitable something happens: they get lost. They lose their way, their direction and end up running around in circles. Their paths are interwoven; they all make circles with seemingly no end. Has this happened to you in your life? Is it happening now?

I have been following a reading plan to read the Bible in a year. It has been enlightening. I started at Genesis and am working my way through Leviticus and Deuteronomy now. In Exodus, the story of the Israelites rescue from the hands of their Egyptian slave masters is told. God rescues them and wants to take them to Canaan, a land flowing with milk and honey. During this time, God directs them to build a Tent of Meeting (a place where they offer their offerings to God and worship Him, a place where God is present). They finish setting it up and then God’s presence rests on it. Let’s pick it up at Exodus 40:34-36: (I’m using the New Living Translation)

 ³⁴ Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle. ³⁵ Moses could not enter the tent of meeting because the cloud had settled on it, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle.

 ³⁶ In all the travels of the Israelites, whenever the cloud lifted from above the tabernacle, they would set out; ³⁷ but if the cloud did not lift, they did not set out—until the day it lifted. ³⁸ So the cloud of the LORD was over the tabernacle by day, and fire was in the cloud by night, in the sight of all the Israelites during all their travels.

I don’t know about you but I find this amazing and pretty awesome. God shows His presence to the Israelites as a cloud during the day and a pillar of fire at night. I think it would be really amazing to have God’s presence near us all the time. The Israelites were completely dependent on God’s direction. If the cloud lifted during the day, they would set out and follow it to where it rested. If the fire moved at night, same thing. God would direct their movements, showing them where He wanted them. Wow! What an awesome thought.

In the busyness of our lives, how often do we take the time to let God lead us? How often do we look for His cloud or His pillar of fire and follow it? God may not appear to us physically as a cloud or fire to guide us but He absolutely shows us the way. We just need to look. We need to adjust our focus and take a breather to search for God’s leading. Where can we look? For starters, the Bible. The Bible is God’s guidebook to life. By reading about the lives and travels of people in the Bible, including Jesus Christ for sure, we can gain insight into our lives and decisions we should make. Also, we need to pray about decisions and ask God for guidance. Prayer is our direct phone line to God. And it is not just a one way line where we tell God what we want. While we are praying we need to take time to listen and hear His voice. If we are doing all the talking it is impossible for us to hear God. If we listen, God will tell us where He wants us to go and what He wants us to do; He will guide us and lead us. We need to focus on Him instead of ourselves, upward instead of inward, and tune into His voice for guidance. Like the Psalmist said, He will make our paths straight.