Last week, we learned favor exists and is available to us even after we fail. We saw it in the lives of Moses and the nation of Israel after their tremendous failure at Mt. Sinai, and we can find it in our own lives today. How? Moses tells us in Exodus 33:13, “If you are pleased with me, teach me your ways so I may know you and continue to find favor with you. Remember that this nation is your people.
Moses had a simple request: “God, teach me your ways,” in order that he could continue “to find favor.” For 21st-century Christians, this is much like the way we use our GPS—we don’t know where we’re going, and we allow the GPS to guide us. The literal translation of “teach me your ways” is “indicate, announce, narrate the journey or way.” God had told the Israelites to move ahead to the promised land, and Moses responded: “I don’t know how to get there. I need you to indicate, announce, narrate the journey or the way.” In other words, “Give me turn-by-turn directions.”
In 2 Corinthians 1:20, we read, “For no matter how many promises God has made, they are ‘Yes’ in Christ…” Just as the Israelites had a promised land, we have all the promises of God through Christ—we simply cannot get there on our own. Moses knew that, so he asked God, “Show us how to get there,” because we can’t discover God’s ways for ourselves. We can’t get to the promises of God on our own.
While Moses may have been the first to ask, he certainly wasn’t the last. The psalmist asked often—not only in Psalm 25:4, “Show me your ways, Lord, teach me your paths,” but again in Psalm 27:11, as well as many other passages. Why ask? Because only God can show us the way. The challenge is, when we get a glimpse of a promise of God, we often feel we can (or must) do it ourselves—and that never ends well. The reason? We operate based on the framework of our past, but God moves based on the framework of our future!
May we seek to learn God’s ways with humility and obedience—and find His favor, even after our failures.