Moses sought an encounter with God. In response, God said to him, “Behold, there is a place by me, and thou shalt stand upon a rock …” (Exodus 33:21). That specific place “upon the rock” was going to be the place of the requested encounter. Why didn’t God do it where they were already having the conversation?
At a previous time when the people had wanted water in the wilderness, God had said to Moses, “Behold, I will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb; and thou shalt smite the rock, and there shall come water out of it, that the people may drink” (Exodus 17:6). God was saying to him, “I will meet you THERE” – a specific location for the expected encounter. To miss that place was to miss the appointment. God is everywhere, but He does not do certain things everywhere (Jeremiah 18:1-2).
After the Resurrection, the message was specific to the apostles: “but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high” (Luke 24:49). They were told not only what to expect but also where to expect it. Suppose someone had been waiting at Bethlehem, because, after all, that was where Jesus was born, and that was where a never-seen-before host of angels had filled the sky in praise to God (Luke 2:8-15)? Well, Bethlehem for the Birth, yes; but not for the novel encounter with the Holy Ghost. Bethlehem was still a great name, but it was not the ordained location for the expected encounter! There are progressive glory clouds that won’t be tied down to one glory spot (Matthew 17:4, 9). A good old address might not suffice for every fresh encounter.
Moses requested to see the glory of God. That was not the first time that Moses was speaking with God. What side of God was he asking to see at that time that he hadn’t seen in all their previous encounters? Can someone encounter the Almighty God and yet miss His glory? Has God so many sides that one cannot entirely see in a life time?
When God said to Prophet Jeremiah, “Arise, and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will cause thee to hear my words” (Jeremiah 18:2), God seemed to have been saying to him, “The programme for this location is over, and meeting hereby adjourned from HERE to THERE.” Promptly, the prophet had to move. He did not argue, like I might have done. He did not say, “But God, what are You going to say to me THERE that You cannot say HERE?”
Prophet Ezekiel also had his similar experiences with God. On one occasion, he reports,
And the hand of the LORD was there upon me; and he said unto me, Arise, go forth into the plain, and I will there talk with thee (Ezekiel 3:22).
The hand of the Lord was already upon the prophet where he was at, yet the Lord still said, “Arise from here, go forth from this place of a present encounter, down to that plain of no recorded previous encounter, and THERE is where I will next talk with you.” Again, I might have asked, “But God, You are already talking with me. Why don’t You just say it here and now?” I wonder, are there things that the speaking God would not say at a present time and in a present location? Do we sometimes miss Him because we missed a place?
As there could be specific places for specific encounters with God, there are also given places of encounter with disaster. We find an example in the story of King Ahab. The time came for that wicked king to die, but that death could not catch him just anywhere. It had been programed to take him from a particular location. The problem at the moment was how to manipulate him out of his safe zone into that waiting ring of death. “And the LORD said, Who shall persuade Ahab, that he may go up and fall AT RAMOTHGILEAD…?” (1 Kings 22:20).
In this season, may your feet never carry you into the ring of death, and may you never miss where next God is waiting to meet with you, in Jesus name. Amen
From The Preacher’s diary,
June 9, 2023
