¹² Moses said to the LORD, “Look, you’ve been telling me, ‘Lead these people forward.’ But you haven’t told me whom you will send with me. Yet you’ve assured me, ‘I know you by name and think highly of you.’ ¹³ Now if you do think highly of me, show me your ways so that I may know you and so that you may really approve of me. Remember too that this nation is your people.”

¹⁴ The LORD replied, “I’ll go myself, and I’ll help you.”

¹⁵ Moses replied, “If you won’t go yourself, don’t make us leave here. ¹⁶ Because how will anyone know that we have your special approval, both I and your people, unless you go with us? Only that distinguishes us, me and your people, from every other people on the earth.” (Ex. 33:12-16, CEB)

What should distinguish us as believers is we don’t move until we see God move. We look for his presence, hunger for his presence, and settle for nothing less than his presence.

One of my favorite scenes out of the old movie Searching for Bobby Fischer is when the chess master clears the chess board and makes Josh (the child prodigy) look at the board and remember how it was set up. The board was set up and the master told him how many moves it was to checkmate. Josh couldn’t see it, so the master swept the pieces off the board.

“What’s your next move?”

He demanded that Josh not move a piece until he saw every play to victory.

“Don’t move until you see it.”

I love that line.

This is what should mark us as the people of God. We are people of prayer, people of the presence, and we get “demanding” like Moses. We don’t move unless we know God is going with us.

May we hunger for the presence of God. May we long for his presence in our lives and insist that we don’t move until we know he is going with us!