Father Lead Me

To feel the weight of what Moses says, I have to remember where the chapter sits. Israel has just made the golden calf in Exodus 32. They built an idol at the very foot of the mountain where God had been speaking with their leader, and the fallout was severe. By chapter 33 God says he will still send them to the land, but he warns that he himself may not go up in their midst, because they are a stiff-necked people and his presence among them could consume them (Exodus 33:3 to 5). That is the setting. This is not a calm devotional moment. It is the morning after a national disgrace, with the relationship hanging by a thread.

The book is traditionally credited to Moses, and however you account for its authorship, the scene it describes is strikingly intimate. We are told Moses pitched a tent outside the camp, and that the Lord spoke with him there face to face, as a man speaks to his friend (Exodus 33:7, 33:11). So when Moses asks his question in verse 16, he is not bargaining from a distance. He is pleading with a Friend he is terrified of losing.

Read verse 16 slowly and you notice it is almost one idea repeated. The question is whether God will go with them, and that is the only thing Moses thinks will set Israel apart. The Hebrew verb behind it is the everyday word for walking or going, and the force of his logic is wonderfully plain: the single mark of God’s favour is God’s own company on the road.

What is easy to miss is how Moses defines being chosen. He does not point to the land, the law, the miracles or the size of the nation. He says the distinguishing thing is that God goes with them. Take that away and Israel is just one more people wandering between Egypt and Canaan. I find that quietly searching. We tend to measure a blessed life by outcomes we can photograph. Moses measures it by who is walking beside him. And he keeps saying “I and your people”, a phrase that sits right there in the verse twice over. He will not be singled out. If the presence does not go with all of them, he does not want to go at all.

This plea does not stand on its own. The very next verses are some of the boldest words a human being ever spoke. Moses presses on and asks, in effect, to be shown God’s glory (Exodus 33:18). God answers that his goodness will pass by and that he will proclaim his name, but that no one can see his face and live (Exodus 33:19 to 20). So Moses is hidden in a cleft of the rock and shown only God’s back as the glory passes (Exodus 33:22 to 23).

That unfinished longing belongs to the wider story. Moses wanted to see the face of God and could not. Generations later John tells us that no one has seen God at any time, and that the only Son has made him known (John 1:18). The presence Moses begged to keep, and the face he was not allowed to see, both find their answer in Christ, who is God with us in person (Matthew 1:23). When Jesus says he is with us always, to the end of the age (Matthew 28:20), he gives freely and for good the very thing Moses was on his knees for.

I have to be honest about how rarely I pray like Moses. When I ask God for things, I usually ask for the land: the result, the open door, the problem solved. I once prayed hard for a job, and only after it came did I notice I had never asked whether God would be in it. That is the exact trap Moses refuses. The destination can be everything I wanted and still feel oddly empty if I have stopped looking for the One who was meant to come with it.

There is a harder version of this. Sometimes the gifts are taken away and you are left holding nothing you could photograph at all. A diagnosis lands, or work falls through, or a marriage goes quiet. In those long stretches, Moses’ question becomes nearly the only prayer I can manage: not “fix this”, but “are you with me in it?” And on this side of the cross, the answer does not hang on my performance or even my mood. Israel had just shamed themselves, and the presence stayed. That is sheer grace. What steadies me is to stop asking only for an easier road, and to ask first that he would walk it at all. The weight shifts the moment I know he is there.

• When I picture a “blessed” life, am I picturing the land Moses could have settled for, or the presence he actually wanted?
• Is there something I am asking God for right now that I have never once asked him to be in?
• Moses would not go without his people. Who am I tempted to leave behind in my own pursuit of God’s favour?
• Where do I most need to hear, today, that he is with me always, and not only when I have behaved well?

If one of these sits close to the bone, you might stay a while in the surrounding story over on Exodus, or let a short daily reading keep the question warm with the verse of the day.