God of Pillars

Fresh Manna
by Pastor Tim Burt

My daughter and son-in-law and their children are missionaries in Lima, Peru. They’re in a total lock down quarantine, far stricter than what we are here. And like so many Pastors, they are having to reach their congregation through technology. He has written a few FreshManna’s for me to post, so I’ll post them from time to time. I pray they are a blessing to you!
God of Pillars
by Pastor Daniel Gutierrez

“By day the LORD went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so that they could travel by day or night. Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night left its place in front of the people.” Exodus 13:21-22 NIV

It is so much easier to identify with the stories of the Bible when we are in times like these. We don’t know what awaits us in the next 24 hours, what will the next numbers be, what we will hear from our president, what exchange rate our money will have. Only predictions exist, but nothing exact.

I imagine what the people of God felt when they left slavery behind: each day stepping on new land they had never been on before, and maybe, even though they were told the best was yet to come, it didn’t seem like it. In Egypt they had to eat around the fire pits, and even though the oppression was real, they knew what was to come with it.

But the not knowing. The going through a desert where it didn’t seem that there was a possibility for anything. I thought how this social captivity could help us get out of the ways of slavery that we have come to permit in life. Maybe, through this social captivity, we are being brought to a better place where a better way of life is waiting for us: where milk and honey flow from the goodness of God.

In transitions so real like we are living, where we have to know when this sickness will depart, we will definitely find a totally new world where we have the opportunity to be the people our hearts always dreamed of being: generous people, creative people, passionate to be agents that establish heaven here on Earth and use what we have on hand something that our grandchildren will enjoy without sadness or shame.
It is for this that these historic verses in the book of Exodus bring me so much security today. In this dry and uncertain transition in this desert, towards something better, there was a daily miracle, something supernatural that by its mere presence announced a divine plan in the middle of it all.

A pillar by day. A pillar by night. One to give direction, and the other to bring light. And it was NEVER TAKEN FROM THEM. I still believe in the God of the pillar of cloud and the pillar of fire. I keep waiting on the daily miracle that my imperfect and human heart can hear the oh so perfect and divine voice of my God, the miracle that the seed of the Word of God would be able to and want to enter and make its home in me. With complete sincerity, more than going out in the street, more than a financial bonus or a family pack of toilet paper, I need to fix my eyes on Jesus, who today is my pillar day and night. I need this cloud of direction and I need His light to shine first on my heart and then on my life.

Psalm 143:10 (NLT2) “Teach me to do your will, for you are my God. May
your gracious Spirit lead me forward on a firm footing.”

In His love,
Pastor Tim Burt

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