Exodus 33:7-11 - Spending time with God

Moses had a tent of meeting, a place set outside the camp. Wherever the camp went Moses took his tent and set it up somewhere outside the camp. Jesus often sought secluded places, and often early in the morning, in order to spend time with His Father. We too need to have a "tent of meeting". Obviously not a physical tent (though you can if you want!), but times and places when we cut ourselves off from everyday life and spend time with God. It is true that He is with us all the time, but we need time when the only communication is between us and God, instead of it being clouded by all the stuff that life throws at us.

Moses was special, no one else could enter this tent. Now, anyone who believes in the Lord can have the same relationship with God. Indeed anyone who believes in the Lord should make sure that they do have the same relationship. In the Old Testament the Holy Spirit had not been poured out on all people, but the promise was (Joel 2:28-32) that a day would come when He would pour out His Spirit on all people. That day has now come.

The Lord made it obvious that He was present. We should expect to be aware of His presence. Now we need to be realistic as well, there will be sometimes when we are more aware of His presence than others, and some times when He seems a million miles away, but we should still expect to meet with God.

God spoke to Moses as a friend. Jesus said told His disciples that He called them friends (John 15:15). This spending time with God is a tremendous privilege, yet we find it so hard to do. We let all sorts of things crowd in. We believe that there are many things in life that we have to attend to, and if we don't things will go wrong, and we will be irresponsible. Have you got your life under total control? Can you deal with absolutely everything? No you haven't and no you can't. We need time when we just receive from the Lord Almighty, the Only One who does have everything under control and can deal with anything.

Joshua stayed by the tent. This was probably to guard the tent, though he may have got some "residue" benefit from the presence of the Lord, but we must be careful about reading too much into this. However, we do need to guard our times with the Lord, otherwise things will crowd in to take these times away.