WHERE HE LEADS

Exodus 13:22 “Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night left its place in front of the people.”

When the children of Israel crossed the Red Sea and were delivered from the tyranny and oppression of Pharoah, they rejoiced. For the children of Israel, the land of promise was a land in which they had never been, and they could have easily lost their way. They needed direction. God knew this so he gave them a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. The great part about this pillar of cloud was that it was big enough that everyone could see it, and no one would ever get lost.

It was a simple thing for Moses to explain. The people had to begin a new experience of not having to rely on the things they used to rely on. The former things were left behind in Egypt. Those things were gone and they would never see them again. Everything now had become new to them. There was a whole new way of living for God’s people.

We are much like the children of Israel. We may be delivered from all of the bondage of where you and I used to be, but without the leading of the Lord we are vulnerable. We don’t need to go anywhere except where he leads us. It is true that our culture as a whole has adopted a “do it yourself” approach. We are taught that you are never going anywhere in life unless you do it yourself. I have fallen into extended periods of this flawed thinking in my life. My pride coupled with insensitivity to God’s leading left me wandering from thing to thing looking for answers, yet finding none. It is an easy trap to fallen in to. We must always look at those times as the effect of our failing to keep our focus on his leading.

Much like for the Israelites in the wilderness, God makes his path visible and available to us continually. It is found within his word and in the leading of his spirit. Failing to recognize them and follow them will always lead us to poor choices and great disappointment. The lesson for us today is clear - God is telling us that in and of ourselves, we don’t know where we are going. We cannot trust our instincts on this. Without the Lord, we lack wisdom to know where to turn, and how to live for God.

The people of Israel would soon find that there was nothing more reliable than that pillar of cloud by day and that pillar of fire by night. It would cause them to always look forward, and to never look back. Does this sound like something you might need for your life? I need guidance in my life. Even though my life may seem routine sometimes, I face a new wilderness almost every day. With each new day, we need to know God’s direction for us. We cannot allow ourselves to become distracted from his guidance. We need to look straight ahead and simply walk behind him and trust where he is taking us.

We must begin to allow the Lord to go before us in everything we say and do. Every decision we make and every thought we have should be focused on following that “pillar of cloud” he has set before us. We must follow where he leads.