Counseling Moses?

People often come to Christian counselors feeling lost. As they are struggling with depression, anxiety, traumatic events, relationship problems, addictions and more, they feel distant from God. Some (but certainly not all) are keenly aware of this separation and are desperately seeking God in the midst of their pain and hardships. But they just can’t find the connection they are looking for on their own – so they come to a Christian counselor for help.

And good Christian counselors are trained in helping clients find God in the midst of their trouble. We search Scripture with them. We pray with them. We encourage other spiritual disciplines. We do try to help clients change how they are thinking, feeling, and acting with all sorts of various methods and techniques. But all along the way, we try to help our clients meet God.

Last Sunday, my pastor used Exodus 33 in his message. This chapter (along with the next) is about Moses meeting God and it got my wheels to turning. (Look out – the psychology guy is doing theology again!)

Moses had just been given some very troubling news. God told Moses to take the people to the Promised Land, but that He was not going to go with them. The people were such a stiff-necked people, God just might destroy them along the way if He were with them.

So Moses becomes distressed. He pleads with God and God decides He will go with Moses and the people after all. Then Moses makes another request – he wants to meet God. “Show me your glory,” he says. And God responds in a fascinating way. He agrees to let His goodness pass in front of Moses and agrees to proclaim His name in Moses’ presence. But God will not let Moses see His face “because no one may see me and live.” So God places Moses on a rock, covers Moses with His hand, and then lets Moses see His back as He passes by.

I think there may be several lessons in this story for any of us who are interested in helping others meet God in their distress.

(1) God is faithful to meet us where we are and communicate to us in ways we can understand. God is not a physical being, yet He manifests Himself in a physical way for the benefit of Moses. We read about God’s hand, voice, face, and back. Surely God is not limited to body parts like those of Moses. In fact, God is infinitely greater than Moses can comprehend. But these anthropomorphisms help communicate truths about God in ways that are actually understandable Moses and us. Like Moses, we will find God when we search for Him and He will communicate to us in ways we can understand. And like with Moses, He will meet us where we are.

(2) In our troubles, God’s answer to our plea to meet Him may not be the full answer. God prohibits Moses from seeing Him fully. They don’t get to sit and visit face-to-face. Moses doesn’t leave with a complete revelation of who God is. His meeting is incomplete. As God passes by, I have in mind a picture of Moses left in awe – a part of him fully satisfied, a part of him desperately longing for more, staring and reaching out for God as he watches only the back of Him pass into the distance. Like with Moses, God will answer our prayers to meet Him, but will do so in a way that leaves us wanting more of Him.

(3) Meeting God is serious business. At first, God refuses to go with His people because He may have destroyed them. He relents, but it is obvious that His presence can be dangerous. In fact, as we see with Moses, it can mean life and death. God declares that no one can see His face and live. It is no small thing to pray with and for our clients, asking God to meet them in their distress. Flippantly or carelessly asking to meet God is risky business. Like with Moses, God expects us to be thoughtful and earnest in our petitions and to respond in worship.

Those have been my thoughts this week in any case. I’ll trust that you all will be like the good Bereans as you read and test them against Scripture. I’m still improving my extemporaneous writing and these observations from Scripture may need some additional work.