Standing Before the Lord

 I have written before about an experience I had while still working, but I need to mention it again today.  I was sitting at my desk working on a project when suddenly and unexpectedly, the Lord spoke to me:  Who are your favorite people in the Bible?  Now I say, "the Lord spoke to me," but I have no objections whatever to someone being a bit skeptical about my hearing the Lord speak.  I am comfortable with saying, "The thought crossed my mind," even though there was absolutely no reason why such a thought would occur to me in the middle of a workday, and the exchange that followed was even more strange.

Without any hesitation or even thought, I replied, "Enoch, Deborah, Abraham."  Now, if you had asked me that question in normal conversation, I would have had a great deal of trouble identifying my "favorite" characters in the Bible.  I might have weighed the merits of each one before coming to a conclusion.  At this moment, however, it seemed as if the answer had been given to me all at once, bypassing the usual hemming and hawing.  Immediately upon responding, I heard that Voice again: Walk with me; sit with me; stand with me."

Okay, folks, I'm just not that good to make up something like this without a lot of prior thought.  I'm a rather slow thinker altogether, and I think it might have taken maybe a month for me to come up with such a terse summary of those three characters.  I didn't have to think much to understand "Walk with me" in its  application to Enoch, who walked with God and was no more, because God took him away (Gen. 5).  And Deborah, one of the judges of Israel, was easy because she sat under a tree, and the Israelites came to her to have their disputes decided (Judges 4).

Abraham, though, I had to think about.  I knew he had walked with God from Ur of the Chaldees to the land of Canaan; I knew he sat with the Lord under the tree of Mamre and heard that Sarah would deliver a child the following year -- but "standing" with God?  I wasn't really sure about that reference until I looked it up in Genesis 18.  And there it was:  Abraham remained standing before the Lord (v.22).

He is "standing" before the Lord because God has just spoken to him, saying, "Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?"  God is revealing to his friend his plans to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah.  Abraham's nephew lived in Sodom with his family, so Abraham stands before the Lord to plead for the city, finally obtaining the Lord's promise not to destroy the city if He can find in it ten just men.

We see a similar scenario in the book of Ezekiel, who is among the exiles in Babylon around 597 B.C.  Ezekiel has a vision of the Lord and says, "When I saw it, I fell facedown, and I heard the voice of one speaking.  He said to me, "Son of man, stand up on your feet and I will speak to you." As he spoke, the Spirit came into me and raised me to my feet, and I heard him speaking to me" (Ez. 2).  Now the Lord is revealing to Ezekiel what He is about to do to the house of Israel, but He warns Ezekiel ahead of time: But the house of Israel is not willing to listen to you because they are not willing to listen to me, for the whole house of Israel is hardened and obstinate.   As it was with Sodom and Gomorrah, so it is now with Israel: the land is full of bloodshed and the city is full of injustice (9).

Before the time of Ezekiel and the Babylonian exile, another prophet, Jeremiah, lamented: My heart is broken within me; all my bones tremble.  I am like a drunken man, like a man overcome by wine, because of the Lord and his holy words.  The land is full of adulterers; because of the curse, the land likes parched and the pastures in the desert are withered....both prophet and priest are godless; even in my temple I find their wickedness, declares the Lord....they are all like Sodom to me; the people of Jerusalem are like Gomorrah....But which of them has stood in the council of the Lord to see or to hear his word?  Who has listened and heard his word?  ....if they had stood in my council, they would have proclaimed my words to my people and would have turned them from their evil ways (Jer. 23).

Abraham, Jeremiah, Ezekiel ---- all called to stand before the Lord, to hear His words and His plans, and to intercede for the city or nation.  Jesus said to His disciples, "I no longer call you servants, but friends, because a servant does not know what his master does/plans."  For most people, prayer usually means saying words to God, but it is clear from Scripture that God wishes to reveal His plans to those who will stand before Him and listen.  If we walk with Him long enough, and sit with Him in friendship for awhile, perhaps He will then stand us on our feet and speak to us as He did to Moses, face to face.