God's Goodness

"And the Lord said, Behold, there is a place beside Me, & you shall stand upon the rock, & while My glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft of the rock & cover you with My hand until I have passed by.  Then I will take away My hand & you shall see My back; but My face shall not be seen."

Exodus 33:21-23

Isn't it exciting when you read or hear something that you've read or heard for years & then suddenly you "get it?"  Not only do you "get it," but it takes your breath away!  It's like "Wow!  Look at that!  How could I have missed that?!?!?"  You want to tell everyone you know about this jaw-dropping revelation you have had.  That is how I felt (& still feel) after reading the account of Moses being hidden in the cleft of the rock in Exodus 33.

As I have mentioned previously, I have been reading a book by Joyce Meyer, Secrets to Exceptional Living - Transforming Your Life Through the Fruit of the Spirit.  I am not a Joyce Meyer junkie, but throughout my life I have encountered very few teachers of God's Word to whom He has given such amazing insight.  

I just so happened to start reading this book in the midst of my 3-1/2 weeks of waiting for the mail order pharmacy to approve & send me a much needed prescription.  (You can read my post about it here if you missed it.) I reached the chapter on goodness sometime during Week 3.  The Bible refers to 9 fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23).  Joyce talks about each one.  If you are like me, there are times in your life when you feel in need of something more so than at other times.  This year I recognized a need for peace in my life, so I was anxious to read the chapter devoted to that fruit.  The chapter on goodness, not so much.  My thoughts were "I know what goodness is; I know how to be good to people," but of course I still read the chapter & I am so glad that I did!

As I mentioned above, for years I have heard/read the account of Moses being hidden in the cleft of the rock, & I understood this simply as that ... an account of something that happened to Moses ... but it is so much more!  Rather than me telling you what Joyce had to say, I am going to just copy her words here for you to read them yourself.  I don't believe I can say them any better.

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Joyce talks about God being good to us.  She then quotes Exodus 33:21-23 & says ...

"I read that Scripture for a number of years without really understanding it.  Then one day God suddenly gave me a revelation about those verses.

In essence, He said [to Moses] 'I'm going to hide you in the cleft of the rock over there...' which I believe represents Jesus because we are hidden in Christ.  He went on to say 'I'm going to pass by, & I will put My hand over you so you can't see my face.'  In other words, 'You cannot see me coming.  Once I pass by, I'll remove my hand & you will be able to see Me from behind.'  My understanding of this passage is that as a Christian you can be in desperate trouble. Perhaps you've been waiting & waiting, & God has been moving toward you every second of each day with the answer.  But you can't see Him coming.  Remember we are hidden in Christ.  Even though our need has not been met to our satisfaction, we're in Christ.  Therefore, we're safe in that place. In Christ, there's a certain kind of provision for us.  It may not be everything we want, but it keeps us.  It helps us.  It gives us what we need to get through the situation.  As the Bible says in Psalm 91:15, God will be with us in trouble & deliver us.  Many times before God delivers us from trouble, we have to be satisfied with Him being with us in trouble. We don't see God coming, but at all times He is moving toward us.  You may not have yet seen the goodness of God manifest in your life, but keep in mind it's moving toward you."

"God is telling us that we will not see Him coming, but we will certainly know when He's been there."

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And that sums it up really.  No matter what we are going through, God is aware of it & He is protecting us ... hiding us from harm ... as He comes toward us to bring us our answer, our deliverance, His comfort, whatever our need may be.  There is no need for you to worry.  All you need to do is know that He is taking care of whatever it might be.  He "has your back"   : )

And this is just a small part of the chapter on goodness!  I pray that someone else reading about this will have a "wow" moment like I did   : ) 

I wish you a very blessed Sunday!