Scripture Reading

Numbers chapter 9, verses 15 through 23:

On the day the tabernacle was set up, the cloud covered the tabernacle, the tent of the testimony, and it appeared like fire above the tabernacle from evening until morning. It remained that way continuously. The cloud would cover it appearing like fire at night. Whenever the cloud was lifted up above the tent, the Israelites would set out. At the place where the cloud stopped, there the Israelites camped. At the Lord's command, the Israelites set out, and at the Lord's command, they camped. As long as the clouds stayed over the tabernacle, they camped. Even when the clouds stayed over the tabernacle many days, the Israelites carried out the Lord's requirement and did not set out. Sometimes the cloud remained over the tabernacle for only a few days. They would camp at the Lord's command and set out at the Lord's command. Sometimes the cloud remained only from evening until morning. When the cloud lifted in the morning, they set out. Or if it remained a day and a night, it moved out when the cloud was lifted. Whether it was two days, a month, or longer, the Israelites camped and did not set out as long as the cloud stayed over the tabernacle. But when it was lifted, they set out. They camped at the Lord's command, and they set out at the Lord's command. They carried out the Lord's requirement according to his command through Moses.

— Numbers 9:15-23

This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

Life's Decisions

I want to ask you a question: How do you know what way to go in life? That is not a theoretical question for anybody in this room. Particularly for some of you who are in your twenties, I think of the twenties as your decade where you're figuring out all your major decisions: your location, your vocation, and your association. Where are you going to live? What are you going to do for work? And who are you going to be with? Who are going to be your friends, your significant other?

But we all know that there's no statute of limitations on decision making. This starts early in life and it continues all of life. Some of you are in middle school and you're already thinking about where you're going to go to college. Some of your parents and you're already thinking how are we going to pay for college? And this just continues. Life is filled with decisions. Do I take a new job? Should I get more training? How do I know if I should quit my job? What schools do we put our kids in? How do I know if this is the right person to hire? Is this the right amount of freedom to give my child at this particular age? Is this the right person to confide in? Is this the right person to marry? Was it right not to marry that person? How will I care for my adult parents? How will I retire? I mean, it goes all the time. We are always facing those questions.

Now I want to think about what's in common with all the questions on that list. Those are not right or wrong questions. Those are all shades of gray questions. They all fit the same parameter. They're all moral, they're all legal and they're all allowable. We're not talking about whether I should murder my neighbor because his dog poops in my yard. The Bible's pretty clear on murdering neighbors, not so much about dog poop, but these all fit under the rubric of moral, legal and allowable.

So how do we know? How do we know which way to go? There's such a vast array of decisions like this in life. Some of you are stuck this morning with a decision in front of you. And just to make sure you feel the weight of it, I want to make sure I really put the pressure on you this morning. We all know people who've made the wrong choices. We all know people and we look at their lives and they're filled with pain and worry and regret because they made snap judgments or foolish decisions that had big impact. So I want to make sure you feel that weight. Some of you might be feeling some fear. Good. There's a sense that this really matters to us, that we need to make the right choices.

And so this is why we look to God and we say, God, I don't know what to do. Give me some guidance here. Show me what to do.

This passage is all about following God in the wilderness. The Israelite people are on the trek from Sinai to the promised land. And this passage seems to have the underpinning of just follow God. That's the answer.

In fact, I hope you enjoyed reading the passage out loud. It's a little humorous. It feels a little Dr. Seuss to me. It sounds like, "And his people by the glory cloud in the rain and on a train and in a house and with a mouse and here and in a chair and on the stair," right? It's like, okay, I get it. It's not that confusing.

And what we hear sounds like every permutation of just follow God. It's that easy. And so it's easy for modern people. We read a passage like this to think this has literally nothing to do with my life. And all those decisions that I have to make—we don't have it so obvious. We can't just look outside and see the glory cloud of God like that's the way we're gonna go. We walk by faith, not by sight. We're not following God, and many of us have wrestled with decision making, trying to discern God's will. It's just not that obvious.

So you might be tempted to think this has nothing to do with me. And I want to encourage you—don't dismiss this passage so fast because this has a lot to tell us about what it means to follow God. Even for us, even in our circumstances, even in all those decisions I talked about. And it's not trite, and it's not... I'm not giving you some Jesus band-aids this morning. And I'm not going to make this simplistic. This isn't Dr. Seuss.

Why We Need Guidance

Here's my outline if you take notes: Why we need guidance, the guide, not guidance, and the fine print.

Now there's a paradox in the biblical understanding of how human agency and divine agency work. Let me make that real simple. On the one hand, humans are absolutely free. We have 100% agency to be able to make choices. And on the other hand, we say God is 100% in charge of what happens in this world. God is sovereign, His will is absolute. And this is where it gets tricky, isn't it? Because in our brains that doesn't work. We divide 100% into forty-fifty, forty-sixty, or fifty-fifty. We're like, okay, maybe it's 70% God, 30% us, or 30% God, 70% us. I'm saying the scripture basically holds up to us 100%, 100%. And this doesn't fit neatly into your philosophy boxes.

So much of human philosophy is wrestling with this question: Is it all fated or do we have agency? And this doesn't fit for us. It's hard to hold these things together. That's called a paradox. And Scripture really holds up both of them. And actually, what we're going to see is this: rather than choosing all fate or all choice, what the Bible offers us is the only way that we could actually function.

Let me demonstrate this for you. So on the one hand, you have the Greek notion of fate, determinism. It's all decided. There is a higher power in the universe, but that higher power has ordered every step. Now, you probably had to read the book Oedipus Rex at some point in school. And Oedipus Rex is a Greek tragedy that's a story of a man named Oedipus. There's a prophecy at his birth that he will kill his father and marry his mother. And the tragedy unfolds—the story unfolds where he is trying at every point in his life, in every decision, that that outcome will not be the case. And what happens at the end of the story? He kills his father and he marries his mother. That's determinism. Everything is ordered and there's no choice. He had no choice in this matter.

But I want you to think about that view of life. If that's your orientation to how the world is, you would never get out of bed in the morning. You would be bored. You'd be apathetic. There's no reason to make any choices. There's no reason to try anything. Might as well watch some more TV, right? There's nothing to do. And Americans, by the way, hate this idea that we're droids or drones in the universe and that it's all just decided.

So let's try the opposite idea. The opposite idea is complete agency—that you are the product of your decisions. Everything is actually up to you to decide. This is the theme of the Back to the Future movies, right? Back to the Future—Marty McFly can go back in time and make decisions that inform the present. He can go forward in time, which is interesting because he goes forward to 2015, which looks a lot like the 80s when he does that. But he has the agency to change fate. And Doc—remember Doc with crazy hair? He gives this summary statement in Back to the Future Part Three. I don't know if I recommend this one or not, but Doc gives this summary statement for all the movies. He says, "Marty, Marty, your future is whatever you make it. So make it a good one, right?"

I mean, that's, and Americans are like, "Oh, we love it. It's all our choices." Like that plays so well with American audiences. But nobody lives that way. Here's why nobody lives that way: If you thought the entire sum of your life is up to you, you would be paralyzed with fear. If everything is your agency and there's nothing else at work in the universe, that is crippling. That would also lead to us never getting out of bed in the morning because I'm going to make the wrong choice and my life is perpetually going to be on plan B, C, D, E, F. We're going to be off track always.

But the biblical view of this is that it's both. This is a paradox. This is mystery. I know it's hard for us. 100%, 100%.

Yes, God is sovereignly working the universe. He's a good God who's working out a master plan. There is purpose. There's direction. There's progress. There are things that are happening and yet also you have choice. You have agency. And while we can't diagram that—I mean, you try to map this out, you'll end up sucking your thumb and rocking yourself. We can't put this all together. And yet this is what's held out to us and it's actually the reason why we can relax and go to sleep at night. Because we know I'm not ultimately in charge of everything, but I have agency.

And this is what's held out to us in Numbers chapter nine. I want you to see this. There's a good God who's in control. The Israelites are following God through the wilderness and there's a destination and there's a route and there's direction, a visible manifestation of God's presence with them. And yet, they're not robots. They have to decide what they're going to do and actually next week's passage will start in on all these scenarios that play out where they decide not to follow God. They rebel, they complain, they grumble, they turn the other way like they have agency to know what to do.

So even though this sounds crazy, this is really the only way that humans can live. It's the only way we can operate in life. It's the only way we can get out of bed in the morning. And this is also why we need guidance. You know, it's funny being a pastor, I often meet people at a back to school night or in auto shop or whatever, and they find out I'm a pastor and it's clear like they have nothing to do with this religion thing, but I've had strangers ask me to pray for them for guidance. They want nothing to do with being in a church, Jesus following all this stuff, but they're like, they know I need guidance. What is that? That's that sense of like, I've got agency and yet there's gotta be something else at work in the universe and we need guidance. You feel some of that? That's what we see in this passage.

The Glory Cloud

And here's where it gets interesting because there's more going on in this passage than meets the eye. It's not Doctor Seuss. I want to show you this and it's all about the glory cloud.

Now, a little background on the glory cloud. This picture of the glory cloud of God doesn't just appear here in this part of the Bible. It's all over the Bible.

In Genesis chapter one, before God starts creating the world and all the stuff in it, we read this: the spirit of God was hovering over the deep. What was that? That's the glory cloud.

In Genesis chapter 11, God meets the patriarch Abram, and he puts him into a deep sleep. And he's asleep and God has told him, I want you to cut these animals in half. And in his sleep, he sees this vision and it's a smoking pot. It's this fire and cloud coming out of it and it goes in between the parts of the animals. What was that? That was the glory cloud.

God shows up to the patriarch Moses. And if you remember, he's out in the wilderness as a shepherd and he comes upon a shrubbery and the shrubbery is burning but not being consumed. What is that? The glory cloud.

In Exodus, we see the people come to Sinai and the mountain is covered with thick smoke and lightning. What is that? The glory cloud.

In Exodus 40, they build God's tent, the tabernacle. God's like, here's my instructions, build my tent. Suddenly, this cloud comes down and fills the whole place and they're like, what is it? It's the glory cloud.

Elijah faces off with the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel, and they're having this showdown. Who's God is the real God? And this is how they know whose God is the real God because God comes down in fire. It's the glory cloud.

And even Jesus, right? Jesus, the most physical manifestation of God's presence. His life is wrapped up with the glory cloud. Jesus is walking one day with three of His closest disciples, Peter, James and John, they go up on this mountain. And suddenly this cloud comes down. This is Matthew chapter 17.

While He was still speaking, a bright cloud covered them and a voice from the cloud said, this is my son whom I love. With him I am well pleased. Listen to him. — Matthew 17

The glory cloud. This happens after Jesus is resurrected from the dead. And He ascends into heaven in a what? Come on, y'all. The glory cloud.

Pentecost, the spirit of God comes upon the followers of Jesus. The early disciples, they speak languages they don't know and it looks like tongues of fire appear on their heads. What is that? That is the glory cloud.

This is all over your Bible. This is what theologians call a theophany. That's just a fancy word for theos, God, phanos, manifest or visible. God made visible. A theophany is a visible manifestation of the invisible God and this glory cloud in particular is a visible manifestation of the Spirit of God. It's all through your Bible.

One of the hardest books, the hardest book I read in seminary was this book by this guy named Doctor Meredith Klein.

Called Images of the Spirit, and it was such a hard book. I had to read it standing up in the library regularly to try to get through it. What I got of it blew my mind. The rest of it I did not understand—really hard to understand—but it was all about this. Why does he call it a glory? Why does he call it a theophany? He says, "This is an image of the spirit of God come down." And I want you to see this in there.

Why? Because every time this glory cloud appears, people aren't like, "Oh, the GPS is here. We got Google Maps downloaded onto our phone, right?" They don't say it's an it, they say it's a he. And they recognize this is the very manifestation of the Spirit of God right in front of us.

This is why I want to say that the emphasis of the Bible is not on God's guidance, but God as guide. It's not on God giving you directionals. I know some of us would love this—we would love for God to put a big arrow in my life: go that way. But the emphasis of Scripture is on God as guide, not on God's directionals.

A lot of people would like this from God. They would like God to be like a divine Ouija board who they ask a question and God's like, "Yes. Should I take this job? No." But what does God want to give us? This is one of the richest themes of Scripture. God doesn't want to give us guidance. God wants to give us Himself. God is all about giving His people Himself.

Software Upgrade Language

This is why, as I've gone through this series on Numbers, you'll notice I'm using software upgrade language. This is because I'm trying to contextualize to this congregation. How many software people are you? Come on, let's see you. Yeah, I thought so. Okay, guys, act like you're ashamed, right? First service was the same thing—like, "Oh, I guess so."

I'm using the language of software upgrade one point zero, two point zero, three point zero because that's what we're seeing in Scripture. Numbers in many cases gives us the one point zero, right? This glory cloud is a visible manifestation of the presence of God. This is one point zero.

And of course at Christmas, which we just celebrated, we celebrate two point zero—the coming of the Son of God in human skin. Suddenly God is not just this glory cloud, but you can touch Him. You can hold on to Him. And then, right before He's about to be crucified, Jesus says these crazy words to His followers. He says, "I'm about to go away and it's going to be even better." And they're like, "No, because I can't imagine anything better than two point zero."

Jesus ascends in the glory cloud, and then at Pentecost, the Spirit of God is sent down and is poured into the lives of those who are His followers. The fourth-century African bishop Augustine put it this way about that. He says, "You ascended from before our eyes, we turned around grieving only to find you in our hearts."

What's Augustine saying? Upgrade three point zero. Here's the Spirit of God poured into the individual life of a believer. Yes, it's not tangible, but it never goes away. It's a permanent possession of a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. This is given internally to you. You're not left alone in the wilderness with a rudimentary map that's drawn with crayon and a broken compass. God's like, "I'm here with you."

The Fine Print on the Guide

This is where we need to read the fine print on this guide. Now, you know what the fine print is? The fine print is that stuff that comes along with every product that tells you terms of use and dangers and here's the limitations of this product and explanations. You see it in the car commercials, right? It's all these little details. Truth be told, I never read the fine print on anything, okay? Big surprise. If you know me, I'm a big picture person, right? I will buy the wrong thing and send it back rather than read the fine print. Anybody else? A couple of you are telling the truth this morning. Thank you for being honest.

But we need to understand the fine print on the guide. And I want to hold up for you five applications of this, five tension points as we follow this guide. So let's walk through these briefly.

First: God is consistent, but He's not predictable. God is consistent, but not predictable. There's so much repetition in this passage—on a plane, in the rain, on a train, right? And yet I love the summary statement here in verse 16.

So it was always. — Numbers 9:16

You get the sense of the predictability of God with this. He was the same. This is what's held up to us over and over in Scripture. He's the same yesterday, today, and forever. He does not change. He's utterly consistent. Remember middle school science class where you had to learn about the scientific method?

The origins of the scientific method grew up in the Middle Ages in Europe, leading up to the Reformation, the Renaissance. And it was based on Christian theology. Now we always think here in our culture that Christianity and science are opposed to one another, but the scientific method grew out of Christian theology. It went like this: if God is consistent, then He's created a world that's consistent and therefore you can observe it. You can begin to study it. You can make a hypothesis about it, right? And then through observation you can test your hypothesis. Remember your terrible lab reports you had to turn in, right? This is what the scientific method is based on. The consistency of God therefore leads to a consistency of His creation out of which modern science arose.

But at the same time, Numbers 9 tells us something that's hard, which is that God while He's consistent is not predictable. Did you hear all the different permutations of how long they could camp? Well, it could be for one night. It could be for a week. It could be for a month. It could be for a year. You kidding me? I mean, can you imagine the frustration of like, well now how long is this one going to last? That's what I bet they were always asking. How long are we going to be here now? Because I mean, I kind of like this one—at least this one has one tree, right? Like I'm wrestling with, what is God up to? Well, God is utterly consistent and also not predictable, not under our control.

God is Here. God is Hidden.

God is here. God is hidden. Now I want you to think about this image of the glory cloud. Some of you have been to San Francisco. San Francisco is famous for their clouds, for their fog. So much so that you can go to San Francisco on a particular type of day and you're like, I know there's a bridge here somewhere. I've heard there's a giant bridge. I can't see anything because a cloud hides, it conceals. And there's something about a cloud that also hides, and I want you to think about this tension with what they're seeing with God. God is here. God is hidden. How does that help us trust Him when we don't know what to do?

I mean, don't you wish that you had a glory cloud you could follow around? But it's helpful to see it wasn't that simple. It wasn't that simple. The glory cloud said both: He's here but He's hidden. And it helps us in our moments wandering through the wilderness to say just because I can't see Him doesn't mean He's not here. Just because I can't feel Him doesn't mean He's absent.

You know, when God works in extraordinary ways, we love it. Oh, we love it. Some of y'all have great stories from your past. You could tell me of answers to prayer—times you're like, I knew God was real, right? And it's so obvious and we want that all the time. And so we do a dangerous thing. We assume. We assume we know because we know, right?

You can look at your life and you're like, God feels gone to me, absent. He feels like He's abandoned me. And here's my caution to you as your pastor: be really careful with that. What do we know? His hiddenness doesn't mean abandonment. His silence doesn't mean He's gone. You can look back at your Bible—there's a four hundred year period between the end of the Old Testament and the beginning of the New Testament when God was silent. And yet we know with the coming of Jesus that did not mean I'm done with y'all by any means.

So how do we know? You know, somehow in our confusion we assume that just because God's hidden means He's not there. And can I let you in on something? You know, it may be that what the Lord is up to in your life is giving you an opportunity to trust Him and to learn Him in a new way and learn more of what it means to follow Him even when you don't know. He's here, but He's also hidden.

God is Our Security, But He's Not Safe.

God is our security, but He's not safe. He's our security, but He's not safe. Did you notice the detail of verse 21? It seems to suggest that the fire was burning all night long. Every time they stopped, it's burning all night long. Even in the middle of the march. And I think about this—what that must have been like.

Some of you have little kids, or some of you have had little kids and you know what it's like to wake up in the middle of the night and the child is crying and has had a bad dream and you can't even really understand what they're saying about it. And you're a Hebrew parent and you can walk outside the tent and you go, "See? Security. It's going to be okay." I mean, is that what we tell our children? It's going to be okay. This is a constant refrain of Scripture that God is our security. There's all these wonderful images in the Bible. He's a refuge. He's a strong tower. He's a shield.

You can hide under the shadow of his wing. God is our security. One of my favorite Psalms, Psalm 121, reminds us that God neither slumbers nor sleeps. He is our security.

Fire is a great symbol of security. It could be a very calming presence. We associate a fire in the fireplace with people gathered round, a storm outside where we're okay, families around the hearth. This is why Netflix puts one on in the holidays—you can watch it. We associate it with that comfort, but fire has another side to it.

This occurs 21 times in your Bible: the image of the metallurgist who takes the fire and puts the metal over it, melts it down so that he can purify it and cleanse it and bend it without breaking. Listen to First Peter One:

Your faith being more precious than gold, which is perishable, even though tested by fire may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. — 1 Peter 1

What that means is security, yes, but not safety. Americans like to think security and safety are exactly the same things, right? In our culture, security implies protection from all danger and all harm. It's the force field around us. Nothing can get in—no pain, no suffering, or injury. But God doesn't promise safety to his people.

That's good bumper sticker theology. We may not say we believe this, but this is one of those bumper sticker statements: "You'll never be more safe when you're in God's will." You've heard that one? That's something people have used to convince young people to go into the mission field. And if you read your Bible closely, that's not always true.

Our God does promise security. And this morning, if you're in this hard place and you feel beat up and battered, if you feel like you've been betrayed by the world and you feel like God is kind of cruel right now—and this is really hard, you feel unprotected—I want to remind you of this: God has guaranteed your security. He guaranteed it on a Roman cross with nails in the hands of His only beloved Son. And nothing, nothing, nothing can take you away from the hands of God. He is always your security. And though following Jesus doesn't promise a safe or problem-free life in the wilderness, He is the true place of security. He will let you go through hard things, but He will never let you go. He will never let you go.

The Destination Is the Journey

Fourth tension: the destination is the journey, but there's a real destination. I love shortcuts. My family will tell you about this. Most of my shortcuts are not usually shortcuts, but I always know better than Google Maps. I really do. And Apple Maps and Waze. I know much better than most of them. So I'm always thinking about what's the quickest way in the mall, in the parking lot, around this traffic accident, right?

But God just doesn't seem to love shortcuts. God seems to love the long way around. Look at this map of the journey they took. The very bottom where the purple goes down is Mount Sinai. The journey from there to the promised land should have taken ten days to two weeks on foot, even with a lot of people. You notice the giant circle? The giant wandering in the wilderness. God doesn't seem to be about the shortcut.

In a lot of ways, what God is saying to us in this book sounds like some dude who's like, "Man, the destination's the journey, man." But in a real sense, that's the case. God is teaching them to trust in Him every inch of the way. Nothing is extra or wasted. Now you look back at your life and think, "That was the year that was a waste of time." We label chapters of our lives that way, but God does not. God does not. He is sovereignly in control. What are setbacks for us? Cul de sacs. God is like, "Oh, I know exactly what I'm up to."

And yet there is a destination. There's a real destination. In the next chapter, I almost had you read this part—it's every bit as tedious to read—because God is telling them to make these silver trumpets that they will blow at a time to call everybody to battle. They found one of these trumpets in the treasures of Tutankhamun's tomb, actually. But I want you to think about this, and some of you are good Bible people, so hang with me. Where do you see in the Bible trumpets and clouds come again? Where we see trumpets and clouds? Come on. The Second Coming. Jesus coming back at the last trumpet, the dead in Christ will rise. He'll come down in a cloud in a glory cloud and meet us in the air, right? This is what's happening, and Susan and I have been into stand-up comedians the last couple of years.

I don't know if this is a middle-aged thing. Is this a middle-aged thing? Where you're like, things are just too sad. I need to laugh a lot, right? So we've been watching stand-up comedians, and one of the great tricks or parts of a stand-up comedian's bit is a callback, right? A callback is when they use the same joke, they say it over and over. And then like at the end, it's like, gotcha. You know, like you get it, right?

And so I just feel like this is part of what God's up to in Numbers. He's like clouds, trumpets. Oh, I got a great callback, right? Jesus is coming back. There's a destination. You know, this is maybe the greatest punchline ever. This is not all wandering. He's going to take us home.

Last Tension

Following the guide is free, but it costs you everything. Notice, God doesn't force the Israelites to follow Him. They're not robots. They're not drones. They're not programmed to have to do this. In fact, we're going to see this where they rebel over and over against doing so. And yet following Him costs them everything. And so it is with us.

You know, salvation in Christ is free. It comes at a price that Jesus Himself paid on a cross so that we are called by His name. And yet we know this is what it means to follow Him, to be a disciple. It'll cost you everything. Jesus Himself said:

There's a cross also for you. Take up your cross daily and follow me.

So it's free, but it will cost you everything. It's all in, even when it doesn't make sense.

Conclusion

So my conclusion for today for all of us is you need a guide and you can trust this guide. But I want to speak in my conclusion to two groups of people in this room. I want to speak to those of you who are overwhelmed with decisions to make right now. And I want to speak to those of you who feel like life is fate right now.

So look, if you are overwhelmed today because, man, it's all up to you. That's what you feel. And you're wrestling. You came in here wrestling with decision-making. And you're paralyzed in fear about making the wrong decision. Here's my word of comfort and hope to you: You can trust the guide. He's inside of you.

And this means that in the place of indecision, we have two options in front of you which are both good options. You can make a choice. Because the guide is not going to leave you. You're not on Plan B if you make the wrong choice in your mind. He's with you. Have some courage and make a decision. You can trust the guide.

Others of you are overwhelmed today because life feels cruel. Feels like fate. Feels like God is uncaring, and it feels like you ended up here because of no decisions of your own, just the cruel hand of God. And can I help you as well?

All you're saying in all of that is that this life is wilderness. And I'm overwhelmed. And I'm confused. And my encouragement for you today as well: You can trust the guide. He's a good guide. And though it's not safe, you are secure. And He's not crazy. There's a real destination. He is taking you somewhere. This isn't all a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury signifying nothing. He's a good God.

Can I remind you of this? In places where we are of confusion, decision fatigue, exhaustion, these are some of the darkest valleys of life. And some of you are squarely in the middle of this right now. And we don't know which end is up. And honestly, it's usually down the road, looking back through the rear-view mirror, that we see what God was up to.

There's an old church father named John Flavel who wrote this:

The providence of God is like reading Hebrew. It can only be read backward.

And what he means by that is, when you read a Hebrew Bible, you don't read left to right, you read right to left. It's like going to England and driving on the wrong side of the road. You're like, what are we doing? Reading right to left. What he's saying is, it's in the rear-view mirror often that we see what God was up to the whole time.

So I want you to think about this in former chapters of your life. I want you to think back. This is not the first time you've been in a dark place. And there have been times where you've been in the middle of either confusion or suffering, decision fatigue, or exhaustion. Way back in the past, you're like, where is God? And now your current self could look back and counsel your former self, you'd be like, hey, it's going to be okay. You can trust Him. I can see now what He was doing.

You know, I think the Hebrew people—if you don't have this story in your past, you can look right here. Because I bet if you went to the people who are years later in the promised land and you say, what was God doing in all that desert? They'd be able to look back in the rear-view mirror like, He was there. He knew what he was doing the whole time. We were filled with doubt and fear and confusion and paralysis, but He was there.

Look, my hope for you as we draw upon this book is that we would have more and more confidence that even in the dark places, the Lord is with us.

Three point oh. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Would you pray with me? Father, we thank you for your word. There's nothing like your word. We come to you confused and battered and beaten down. And Lord, we thank you Father that you offer us not only a word of explanation, but your very spirit within us. We pray today, Father for confidence to follow you and put a foot in front of the other. And remember that you are with us. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen.

Let's sing in response to God's word.