One verse I come to over and over that still challenges me:

He made known his ways to Moses,
    his deeds to the people of Israel (Ps. 103:7, NIV)

Somewhere in the recesses of my mind I remember this verse from a sermon in chapel or taught in a class when I was in Bible college. (I’m reaching back quite a ways now… and it gets farther and farther!)

The short exposition was this:

Israel saw what God did. Moses knew WHY God did it.

The challenge was this: we can observe what God is doing, or we can walk with God and know WHY he is doing it. For decades I have read that verse and slowly breathed that prayer time after time. I truly want to walk with the Lord in that way. An intimacy that allows me to know his heart… because it is possible.

Moses spent that time with God. Israel was impatient, imprudent, and impulsive. I am too often Israel and not enough Moses.

I approach my 59th year and I need to keep this prayer before me and before the Lord:

Let me know your ways. Let me know the why.

I will forever be indebted to those few moments I was able to be with a missionary named Calvin Olson. He went to be with the Lord many years ago now, but he was a man of prayer. His missionary life was founded in prayer, sustained in prayer, and marked by a deep walk with the Lord long after he had retired from the field.

He would say at our pastors’ prayer retreats: “I’m addicted to prayer.”

Calvin knew the why.

We could ask him, “Calvin, what is God up in the world?” And Calvin could legitimately tell us. He knew the why.

I want to be less and less the observer, seeing what God did. I want more and more to be the participant with God and his Kingdom.

Let me know your ways. Let me know the why.