up to the mountain with you Lord...thats where i want to go

Ok, so before I get this holier than thou art feeling about this blog I just want to say that this is how God is completely destroying me. This is not easy for me to admit, and I was almost reluctant to write this in fear of it actually effecting me or in fear that people would hold me accountable, but as a very wise women (and my future mother-in-law) once told me two minutes ago "Keep writing it all down and you'll process through your fingers, or the devil will tell you none of it happened. I'll pray God gives you words for your emotions"...so here it goes :)
so lets read exodus 18. yup the whole thing. if you really Don't feel like reading it, then that's ok but i seriously encourage you to because its just good! anyway.... so lets run through this, so this is the chapter where Jethro visits Moses. A little back story of Jethro and Moses is he is Moses' father-in-law and also a high priest so he knows God and is a pretty amazing individual. So Moses goes back to Egypt after the burning bush incident, does the whole let my people go thing and then goes into the wilderness.
Then Moses sends his wife and kids to Jethro, and Jethro turns around and says um Moses I'm coming to see you. So they pack up and go to Moses. Now at this time Moses and Jethro haven't seen each other since all this amazing stuff happened to Moses. God has provided everything for him and done amazing miracles in his life so Moses is pretty stoked at the moment. He can't wait to tell Jethro about the plagues and the red sea and the manna and the water from the rock. So Moses sees Jethro and bows down and kisses him. You can just see the excitement of Moses as he is writing this
"Moses told his father-in-law about everything the Lord had done to Pharaoh and the Egyptians for Israel's sake and about all the hardships they had met along the way and how the Lord had saved them. Jethro was delighted to hear about all the good things the Lord had done for Israel in rescuing them from the hand of the Egyptians. He said, Praise be to the Lord, who rescued you from the hand of the Egyptians and of Pharaoh and who rescued the people from the hand of the Egyptians. Now i know that the Lord is greater than all other gods" Ex 18:7-11a.
So Jethro is PUMPED for Moses, way to go Moses look at all the stuff you did for God YAY! This was the moment for Jethro that made it clear that this God was the Lord of Lords...the ONE...so Jethro throws Moses this big party and praises Moses for his Win for God and...nope...not at all. He gives an offering to God and sits in the presence of the Lord with Moses. Just sits. Waits on God and was just in the presence of the Lord. No pat on the back or announcement of what a great ministry he has, or all that he suffered through to get to where he is at, just a Praise be to the LORD, and then a lets sit in the presence of God. I wonder what would happen if that were to happen today . But if it weren't for this person or this ministry and well God used ME to do this and that was a great worship service you just led...oh thank you! God really showed up... STOP. We need to STOP. First of all why are WE, the followers, leading ANYTHING? God may be using us, but he did it. He gets ALL the glory. He is coming along side us saying ok lets do this thing, but in the end I need to get all the glory because you are worthless without me. So in the end, I am the one who gets all the Glory, and we always just pass God up and say yeah absolutely God, you always get all the Glory and in reality...he never gets its and our hearts are really black on the inside with a nice "humble" Jesus coating. Many of us live...oh man this is breaking my heart...but we live in this "oh man I have so not arrived yet but i sure am close" attitude. Living like we are so humble while we are on stage and then off we have it all together with our fancy lifestyles. Now i am NOT bashing anyone out there at all. It is about your heart and i have nothing to say to anyone else, this is strictly what God has been weeding out of my life. when i say these things this is a complete bash at the way i was living. Giving credit to God through a narcissistic heart. sadly its true
Lets continue...
The next day Jethro is watching Moses do his thing and take care of the people he just brought out of the land. He sees Moses dealing with all of the problems of the people being the mediator. Now in and of itself, this doesn't look like a bad thing. He is just trying to help, and make sure there is peace within the large group. Jethro has a major problem with this so he pulls Moses aside and says "What you are doing is not good".......hold up Jethro, Moses just did all these great things for God, how could he be doing the wrong thing?? You think you can just come up here and tell me what to do? Jethro continues telling Moses what he does need to do instead of having the people come to him...he says "You must be the people's representative before God and bring their disputes to him." Now what Moses does next makes him one of my heros....he listens to his father-in-law and does everything he says. we must understand where Moses is coming from. He just did all these amazing things, miracles if you will and Jethro is saying he isn't doing a good job?! Yea, my thoughts exactly. Forget your Jethro, but Moses doesn't say that here. He listens to him and does exactly what he says. He brings his disputes to the Father and in the next chapter Moses does something for the first time ever...He goes to God. Before if you read in Exodus it is always God saying Moses come to me, do this for me. Moses remember me. Here is the transformation of Moses...Exodus 19:3 "Then Moses went up to God". There is it...Moses started taking this to God. He started talking to God about the people he was dealing with more than he was talking to the people about God. It is more important for us to talk to God about people then it is for us to talk to people about God.
He was up on the mountain with God praying for the people and just being with God more than he was with the people. Why do we think that we can be so much greater than God in this. Instead of preaching to them all the time why don't we come alongside them and pray for them. Not the oh Jesus please help my friend, but really interceding on their behalf! By Ex 32 Moses had spent a ton of time with God and God sees what the people are doing gets mad and tells Moses to leave his presence so "that my anger can burn against them" kinda scary if God says that right, but Moses being the guy who was in the presence of God having a real relationship with him, talking to him all the time, and just chilling with God asks for his favor. Asks him not to destroy them, and God....doesn't! We get caught up in this whatever God says goes, which it does, but because of the intimacy Moses had with God, he could do this. He had a relationship with the Father like no other so he had the authority to speak to a Holy God in this manner....When will I get to that place where i can be this way with my God?
Why aren't i spending more time on the mountain? I want to go to the mountain all on my own, without God whispering for me to come to see him.
Spend more time on the mountain then at the bottom trying to fix people.
This isn't coming through AT ALL the way I want it to. I cant explain it, but this basically was just God slapping me in the face telling me I am taking his Glory way to often instead of coming up to the mountain to see him. We should NEVER take anything. We are not amazing or awesome or anything. I'm sorry this is so long and so much nonsense, but I guess that's how I know this is truly God working in me, I just need to show you guys through my life style change. I hope this is making a little bit of sense...sorry if its not...God is just rocking me completely I guess that's all you have to know ;).
love you guys
Yours Humbly....honestly crawling in humility.
Mariah