The Mustard Seed Mill

The setting is the Wilderness.

The Lord had delivered the Israelites from bondage. He had given them a new way to live that set them apart from idol worship and a lifestyle that would eventually lead back to bondage. He had given them a way of life that would offer health, freedom, and a relationship with God.

The Lord gave them all they needed and He wanted them to go to Him as the source of all their provision and direction. He promised to lead them well, but they had to learn to follow.

Numbers 9 shows how God wanted to be present in the lives of the Israelites. Not only do we see a moment when Moses gets a clear direction from God for a specific situation as a leader, but we also see how God made Himself known to the entire camp of Israelites in a cloud.

As the Israelites were journeying through the desert, the wilderness, they would have to set up and tear down camp and move along the way as they were getting to their next stop. God gave them clear direction as to when to move and when to stay through the cloud. The cloud appeared by day, and at night it appeared as a fire. If the cloud stayed, the Israelites stayed. If the cloud moved, the Israelites moved.

Numbers 9:22 says that whether the cloud stayed for two days, one month or one year, they would stay, but when it would move, the children of Israel would move. I began to think about the Israelites waiting for this cloud. Can you imagine? A day or two, yes. A few weeks, ok. But as long as months or a year? Waiting to see what the cloud would do?

I began to imagine every day, looking at the cloud to see what it was doing. I would imagine that the longer the cloud stayed in one place, the more I’d be looking up at it, wondering what it would do next. Is it about to move? Is it not? Is the cloud still effective? Does the cloud remember it’s supposed to move?!

I would imagine that all that time spent waiting for the cloud to move I’d be looking for it to move. Would I be thinking, I know that cloud is going to move, is it today? Or would I be wondering if the cloud would ever move again? Would the cloud just leave me stuck in this wilderness forever?

The thing about looking at something every day and expecting something from it is that we also get to know the appearance and characteristics of that thing. I wonder if as the Israelites were looking daily at the cloud if they began to see the cloud in different ways. Could they see the colors change? Could they see shadows in the billows of the clouds? Would the subtle differences in the cloud be a tell of what would happen next? It was like a cloud of smoke from a fire. There had to have been waves and wafts in the cloud. The flames of the fire had to have been full of color and power. Would they gaze on it in wonder or would they simply just become accustomed to its presence and lose sight of its wonder?

We may not have ever lived in a tent traveling through a desert, but it’s pretty certain we’ve all walked through some kind of wilderness in our lives.

Maybe we walked or are walking through a wilderness for a couple of days, a month, a year…. When we walk in these seasons, we don’t really know how long they will last, but there is one thing we can know for sure. The God that brings us out of bondage, the God that sets us apart, the God that calls us to Himself; He is there! Chances are, we don’t see Him as a physical cloud by day or fire by night, but but His presence is available to us.

When we are in our wilderness, we may not know when God will do the thing we are waiting for Him to do, but we have a choice of what we’ll do while we wait. Will we simply become accustomed to His presence in the sky and dismiss the power that’s so readily present? Or, will we choose to gaze upon the cloud as we wait?

The amazing thing about God is that even when we may not feel it, His presence is near. When we choose to look to Him; to gaze upon Him; to study His face and expect Him to move, we get to know about Him. Our waiting moves from us being in a passive, victim state to us being in an active waiting where we are engaged with the God of the universe that can change all of heaven and earth.

He has the power to move us out of our wilderness, but we have to be looking to Him to move.

If we use that time of waiting for Him to move to gaze upon Him, we not only get the hope of moving out of our wilderness, but we get the unbelievable gift of knowing the fire and the power in the cloud. We get to know God Himself. We get to be known by Him.

Though I’m sure the Israelites were elated when it came time to move, imagine the peace and security they either felt or could have felt knowing the presence of God hovered over them and went before them.

Psalm 16:5 says “O LORD, You are the portion of my inheritance and my cup; You maintain my lot.” The Lord is our portion. He’s our inheritance. A relationship with Him is our reward. He is the point.

So, while we wait, sometimes in the wilderness like the Israelites, let us remember that our true reward is His presence. We can wait expectant for Him to move, but let’s not forsake our inheritance of His presence that’s already here and now. We only need to gaze upon Him.