We learned last week how we are fully known by God, but also fully loved and understood by God.  God is not only omniscient, all-knowing, He is also omnipresent; everywhere all of the time.

Psalm 139:7-12

7 Where can I go from your Spirit?

    Where can I flee from your presence?

8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;

    if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,

    if I settle on the far side of the sea,

10 even there your hand will guide me,

    your right hand will hold me fast.

11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me

    and the light become night around me,”

12 even the darkness will not be dark to you;

    the night will shine like the day,

    for darkness is as light to you.

Although God’s Presence is everywhere all of the time, there is a huge difference between God’s general presence and God’s intimate presence.  I know, it sounds like double-talk, but it’s truth.

We know this to be true because we’ve all been in the physical presence with someone while they weren’t present with us.  We can be standing face-to-face with someone and talking to them and yet they are looking all over the room at what’s happening around you or with their head down scrolling through their phone. 

You are physically present with them, but you’re not present together.  They are physically present, but their focus and attention are elsewhere.  This becomes outright heartbreaking when you are in a relationship with someone such as a marriage or friendship or family and you coexist in this way in the long term. 

They may be physically present, but you are disconnected and disengaged from one another.  They don’t really know you or understand you or care about what is on your heart or mind.  They just don’t get us and don’t really make a good effort toward trying to get to know us, either.  Present, but not present.

Unfortunately, this is often true when it comes to our relationship with God.  God is physically present, but we aren’t seeking after His Presence.  We know a lot about Him, but we really don’t know Him; what is on His heart and mind.

There was a huge difference at the temple in being in the outer courts, inner courts, and the holy of holies!  God’s Presence was physically present in that place.  However, just feet separated the varying degrees of intimacy in encountering His Presence in different ways.

Moses well understood this difference having spent time as an Egyptian prince, a Hebrew slave, a guest in a priest’s home, and climbing the very mountain of God, walking through the dark cloud, and meeting face-to-face with God.

Exodus 33:12-16

12 Moses said to the Lord, “You have been telling me, ‘Lead these people,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. You have said, ‘I know you by name and you have found favor with me.’ 13 If you are pleased with me, teach me your ways so I may know you and continue to find favor with you. Remember that this nation is your people.”

14 The Lord replied, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”

15 Then Moses said to him, “If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. 16 How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?”

If God’s presence is everywhere all of the time, then why would Moses demand that God’s Presence go with them?  There is a big difference between God’s general presence and His intimate Presence.  Encountering God’s Presence was so important, that Moses chose to set apart a place and purpose it so that all could enter into it.

Exodus 33:7-11

7 Now Moses used to take a tent and pitch it outside the camp some distance away, calling it the “tent of meeting.” Anyone inquiring of the Lord would go to the tent of meeting outside the camp. 8 And whenever Mo