For sometime, after I began this strange journey of faith, I prayed the same prayer over and over again. It’s based on a request Moses made and God’s response to it: Show me your glory; cause your goodness to pass in front of me. I would repeat and repeat, “Show me your glory; show me your glory”, genuinely wanting to see a tangible essence of God’s splendour, and at the same time, feeling smug for making such a ‘righteous’ prayer. But Moses knew nothing at all.

You know who knew what he was talking about? David. In The Lord is my Shepherd, King David said, “Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me all the days of my life…”. Who needs ‘let me see your goodness pass in front of me’? No! Let your goodness pursue me.

Moses was looking for a performance of some sort, shining light and splendour and eternal beauty. He wanted to see something that would give him confidence in God. Somehow, witnessing the ten plagues in Egypt, splitting the Red Sea into two, seeing bread fall from the sky every day, and holding the stone tablets of the Ten Commandments were not enough.

The problem with being a performance person is that your eyes are never satisfied. You always need to see more. Without the seeing, you easily lose heart.

Sweet David says, “You are my shepherd; let your goodness follow me”. He hadn’t seen half – or even a quarter – of what Moses and the Israelites saw in the exodus from Egypt saga; but he knew God was there. The sheep don’t always know where the shepherd is but they know he’s got their back no matter what.

David understood the stupidity of faith. He was that idiot who went against Goliath without having an energy boost from a sign or a miracle to get him going. He went out without any physically tangible assurance that God was going to help him take down the giant. He simply had confidence in the shepherd that was always with him.

None of this makes any sense, I know. It’s not suppose to:

[…] he has used our foolish preaching to save those who believe. It is foolish to the Jews, who ask for signs from heaven. And it is foolish to the Greeks, who seek human wisdom. So when we preach that Christ was crucified, the Jews are offended and the Gentiles say it’s all nonsense.

But to those called by God to salvation, both Jews and Gentiles, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. This foolish plan of God is wiser than the wisest of human plans, and God’s weakness is stronger than the greatest of human strength.
(1 Corinthians 1:21-25)