Extra Face Time


21 “Six days you shall labor, but on the seventh day you shall rest; even during the plowing season and harvest you must rest.

22 “Celebrate the Festival of Weeks with the firstfruits of the wheat harvest, and the Festival of Ingathering at the turn of the year. 23 Three times a year all your men are to appear before the Sovereign Lord, the God of Israel. 24 I will drive out nations before you and enlarge your territory, and no one will covet your land when you go up three times each year to appear before the Lord your God.

25 “Do not offer the blood of a sacrifice to me along with anything containing yeast, and do not let any of the sacrifice from the Passover Festival remain until morning.

26 “Bring the best of the firstfruits of your soil to the house of the Lord your God.

“Do not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk.”

27 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Write down these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.” 28 Moses was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights without eating bread or drinking water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant—the Ten Commandments. Exodus 34:21-28

The Lord continued dictating to Moses commandments he had already dictated to him previously. Once again Moses had been on the mountain for 40 days and nights without eating or drinking. We get a glimpse at what was discussed but only a glimpse. What we have is perhaps an hour of the conversation at best.

What else was talked about? Why was he gone for so long?

We have an idea of this from Exodus 33:11 – “The Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend.”

Friends just hang out together. Topics of conversation vary and often go from subject to subject as it comes to mind. There’s no set agenda usually.

The Lord could have easily been preparing Moses for the journey ahead, and felt he needed the extra “face time.”

Or it could have been that Moses knelt in the Lord’s presence just to be there. Good friends are comfortable in silence too.

Whatever was discussed or not discussed is not made public.

Similarly, what you discuss or not discuss when you’re in the Lord’s presence encourages and strengthens you. You don’t need to say a thing or you can talk a mile a minute. Either way you are being encouraged as only the God of the Universe can do.

In these days of throwing everything online for all the people of the world to see, sometimes it’s encouraging just to keep certain things to yourself. What the Lord tells you in the stillness of your heart should only be for your consumption.


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