Ryan's Ramblings

“What else will distinguish me…?” — Exodus 33:16, NIV

In the movie The Truman Show, Truman Burbank believes he is living an ordinary life in an ordinary town. He has a home, a wife, a job, friends, and familiar routines. And every morning he gets up and goes about his day believing the world around him is real. But it isn’t.

His town is make-believe—a massive set built for a television show about his life. The people around him are actors. Even the horizon isn’t real. His whole world exists inside an enormous dome. Nearly everything Truman believes is real is fake. And slowly, Truman begins to see it. He begins to realize that the life he has accepted as reality isn’t what it seems.

That strange movie makes me think about Exodus 33.

Israel had sinned badly. While Moses was on the mountain meeting with God, the people made a golden calf and worshiped it. In the aftermath, God tells Moses that the journey can continue and the Promised Land is still before them. God even says He will send an angel ahead of them to drive out their enemies. They can keep moving and still arrive at the place they have been dreaming about. But He won’t be going with them.

Imagine hearing God say: You can have the destination, the land, and the victory. You can have what you have been working toward and longing for … but you won’t have Me.

Moses’ response is immediate: “If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here” (v. 15).

In other words, If You aren’t going with us … we don’t want to go.

Moses understood that the Promised Land without God’s presence would be something less than promised. It might seem like the real thing, but the One who made the promise would be missing.

Then Moses asks a question that’s hard to shake: “What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?” (v. 16)

What else will distinguish me? That isn’t just Moses’ question. It’s ours too.

What makes a life really alive? Is it getting the house? Building the career? Raising the family? Reaching retirement? Having enough money? Being respected? Accomplishing our “dreams”? Those can all be wonderful gifts. But none of them can take the place of God Himself.

Billy Graham once said, “My greatest fear is that God would remove His hand from me.”

Maybe one of the greatest dangers isn’t that our lives will fall apart. Maybe it’s that everything will keep working. We keep going, keep achieving, keep filling our calendars and reaching our destinations—and somewhere along the way, we become so busy living the life we have built that we hardly notice we are living it… without His Presence.

I think Moses and Billy Graham were onto something, and this should be our prayer:

Lord, whatever lies ahead, don’t let me go anywhere without You.