Face to Face with God

I was challenged this morning by the words of Richard Foster in his classic book, Celebration of Discipline:

At Sinai the people cried out to Moses, “You speak to us, and we will hear; but let not God speak to us lest we die” (Ex. 20:19). One of the fatal mistakes of Israel was their insistence upon having a human king…. The history of religion is the story of an almost desperate scramble to have a king, a mediator, a priest, a go-between.

Every day that you and I fail to make time to get alone with God, we make the same mistake as the Israelites. We fail to seek God face to face. Instead, we often opt for a go-between—a Sunday morning sermon, a Christian magazine article (or blog!), even chatting with a friend about what’s going on at church. We may choose to avoid meeting God out of fear (as it seems the Israelites did). Or we may feel inadequate to approach God face to face. We may be unsure of just how to go about it. In my case, it is generally just lethargy and an inability to use my time appropriately.

Whatever the reason, it is the fatal mistake made down through the centuries. The results today are the same as they were for the religious in Israel. We take on all the burdens of the faith without experiencing the benefits of a first-hand relationship which would make those burdens easy and light. Like the religious in Israel, we fail to recognize Christ’s voice and work when He appears.

As much as I would like to write something innovative—to come up with a novel solution to an age old problem—I am convinced there is only one solution and that is one that we’ve been told about since we were kids. We must make time to pray and read the words God left for us every day. We must attempt to rely less on the go-betweens in our lives and get face to face with Him on our own. This is the big “secret” that some Christians seem to be able to get hold of, the reason they seem to hear God when most of the rest of us can’t.

(By the way, I'm laughing at myself right now because I realize I am dragging my feet a little about Bible study today. My excuse is that I am waiting for a particular commentary to arrive from Amazon. Why do I feel the need to wait for UPS to deliver a book written by someone other than God when I already have His book and His Spirit to help my understand it? I am sure the commentary will be a big help when it arrives, but it is no excuse to delay getting face to face with the God in the Bible today, right?)