Show Me Your Glory

Moses had a friend, and the friend was God.

They would talk together in the tent, the way you lean close to someone and tell them a secret. God would speak, and Moses would listen. Moses would speak, and God would listen. Like friends do.

This was just after the people had made the golden calf, when Moses begged God not to leave them, and God said he would stay. But the more you love someone, the more you want to SEE them. Not just to hear their voice through a tent wall, or to know they are near. You want their face. You want to look right into their eyes and know they are looking back.

That was the ache inside Moses. It grew and grew, until one day he could not hold it in, and out it came.

"Please," Moses said. "Show me your glory. Let me SEE you."

He was asking with his whole heart: let me see the One I love, all of him, the whole shining wonder of God, face to face.

And God's heart was tender toward him. God did not say, "Don't be silly, Moses." God did not turn away. He leaned close, the way he loves to lean close to his children.

"I will be good to you," God said. "I will pass right in front of you. I will say my own name out loud, and you will hear how kind I am. I will let all my goodness go by."

But then, gently, God said something hard.

"You cannot see my face. No one can see my face and live. My glory is too much, little one. It would be like trying to hold the whole sun in your two small hands."

So God hid Moses in the cleft of a rock. He covered Moses with his hand, the way you might cup a candle so the wind won't blow it out. And God passed by. All his goodness, all his glory, rushing past like a great warm wind.

And when he had gone by, God lifted his hand. And Moses looked.

He saw only God's back, only the place where the glory had just been, the very edge of the wonder.

It was enough to make Moses' face shine for days. But it was not the face. Not yet.

So Moses carried the ache home with him, the longing to really SEE. And he was not the only one. All God's people carried it, down through the years and the years, the same hungry wish: to look into the face of the One who loves them.

And the ache itself was a kind of promise. Even then, God was planning a day when he would not hide his face at all.

He would come close enough to touch. He would have eyes you could look into, and a voice you could hear with no tent wall between, and a name: Jesus. And the people who loved him would see the glory of God, at last, face to face.

Moses came down the mountain with his face still shining, holding a promise bigger than the mountain itself: one day, God's children would look into God's eyes and never have to look away.