We Christians should not be surprised when the Holy Spirit leads us in different ways at different times. He will not contradict his own principles or character as set forth in the Scripture, but he will not act like a machine, always responding to similar situations in exactly the same ways.

Is God with you?

Let me begin this piece with a story. It involves my two pets. I try to take my dog for a walk twice daily, something she is always quite keen on. (I probably should do more things with her – she might have a rather boring life in some ways!)

When we head out the front door, my dog will race out. But often my cat wants to go out as well, but she takes her dear sweet time doing so. I urge her to hurry it up, so I can close the door and catch up with my dog. But often Jilly dog will wait at the end of the driveway, turn around and look back to see if I am still with her. I am always glad she does that: she still depends on me, at least to some extent. She knows that I should be with her.

And that is all good sermon material for a discussion about God’s presence. There are at least three senses in which God is with us. One, he is with everyone in the sense that he is omnipresent. No one can escape his presence. But two, he is with his people in a special sense. The Holy Spirit indwells believers, but not non-believers. And three, there may be special tasks or missions God calls us to in which we especially need him to be with us.

That is, you might think you are supposed to do something particular for God, but perhaps it is the wrong time or not being done in the right way. Thus if you recklessly charge ahead without carefully and prayerfully seeking God in all of it, you might be going without God. That is not a good place to be in. Consider what we find in Exodus 33:12-17:

Moses said to the Lord, “See, you say to me, ‘Bring up this people,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, ‘I know you by name, and you have also found favor in my sight.’ Now therefore, if I have found favor in your sight, please show me now your ways, that I may know you in order to find favor in your sight. Consider too that this nation is your people.” And he said, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” And he said to him, “If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here. For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people? Is it not in your going with us, so that we are distinct, I and your people, from every other people on the face of the earth?” And the Lord said to Moses, “This very thing that you have spoken I will do, for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name.”

Moses had it right: we would not go anywhere unless he was convinced that the Lord was with him. He knew that disaster, not blessing, would occur if Israel attempted to do anything apart from the Lord’s presence. Various other clear examples of this are found in the Old Testament narratives.

Recall the story of the 12 Israelite spies who went to Canaan and came back with their differing reports. Only two of the 12 believed that Israel could take the land that God had promised. In Numbers 14:36-45 we read this:

And the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land, who returned and made all the congregation grumble against him by bringing up a bad report about the land— the men who brought up a bad report of the land—died by plague before the Lord. Of those men who went to spy out the land, only Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh remained alive. When Moses told these words to all the people of Israel, the people mourned greatly. And they rose early in the morning and went up to the heights of the hill country, saying, “Here we are. We will go up to the place that the Lord has promised, for we have sinned.” But Moses said, “Why now are you transgressing the command of the Lord, when that will not succeed? Do not go up, for the Lord is not among you, lest you be struck down before your enemies. For there the Amalekites and the Canaanites are facing you, and you shall fall by the sword. Because you have turned back from following the Lord, the Lord will not be with you.” But they presumed to go up to the heights of the hill country, although neither the ark of the covenant of the Lord nor Moses departed out of the camp. Then the Amalekites and the Canaanites who lived in that hill country came down and defeated them and pursued them, even to Hormah.

Read More