Through the cloud

2018 Lent Installation at Southwark Cathedral by Susie McMurray: Doubt

Exodus 40:34-38
The Cloud and the Glory
Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud settled upon it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. Whenever the cloud was taken up from the tabernacle, the Israelites would set out on each stage of their journey; but if the cloud was not taken up, then they did not set out until the day that it was taken up. For the cloud of the Lord was on the tabernacle by day, and fire was in the cloud by night, before the eyes of all the house of Israel at each stage of their journey.

Where, today, do you meet God?

Where is your tabernacle

That sacred place

That holy ground

that may, in fact,

be very ordinary

Except 

Except - that God meets us there.

And how do you discern

when, once you have stepped aside,

to enter that holy place,

how and to what

God is calling?

For oft times it seems

that the nearer to God we move

the harder it is to make out

God’s purpose and calling

on our lives.

As though the cloud and the glory

obscure

the pathway we long to discern

And so we are forced,

like the Israelites

to wait it out

impatient though we are

to be moving along 

on our journey of faith.

Forced to cool our heels

and to wait with God

not passively 

maybe not even patiently 

but to wait 

until God leads us on again 

onto another stage

of the journey of faith.