That I May Know You

“Now therefore, I pray, if I have found grace in Your sight, show me now Your way, that I may know You and that I may find grace in Your sight. And consider that this nation is Your people.” And He said, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.””

Exodus 33:13-14

A strong theme in this section is to know. In some form, the word is used repeatedly in these verses. In the sense of relationship, God knew Israel and Moses, and Moses wanted to know God’s “way,” the God-inspired path that he should follow. He asked to know God’s way, but his real passion was to know God’s nature. Knowing these things would be a confirmation that grace had truly been applied to his life, but Moses requested this so that ultimately he could experience even more or the grace of God. The word translated “grace” is chen, and it comes from the root word “chanan” that means to stoop down in order to help one who is inferior. Whenever God pours out grace, in a sense He “stoops down” from His level of holiness and perfection to help unholy and imperfect humanity, simply because He loves us.

It is beautiful to read how Moses continued to press God for affirmation of the promise. This shows how boldly he sought after God for the sake of his own relationship with God and for the benefit of the nation. My Presence will go with you is literally “My Face will go with you.” This helps us to understand what it means when it says Moses met with God face to face (Exodus 32:11). It has the sense of “in the immediate presence of God.”

My prayer for us today is: “that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power” Ephesians 1:17-19

Love & Prayers,

Alan James Schrader