Forever Faithful...

I recently read an article written by Alex Kirk entitled "Tent Duty."  The article talks about Exodus 33:11 - "The Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend.  Then Moses would return to the camp, but his young aid Joshua son of Nun did not leave the tent."  Guarding the tent wasn't exactly a glamorous job, but he argues that tent duty for Joshua was a time of being formed by the Lord, being prepared for his future position of leadership to the nation of Israel.  We all have times of being on "tent duty," and we often don't understand what those times have to do with the work of God in our lives.  There was one part in particular that really stood out to me.  It hit me like a ton of bricks, actually:

In any case, we are seldom given a clear explanation while we’re in the midst of tent duty itself. In that respect it is always a faith-stretching exercise. And the string of questions will lead us to the place we nearly always end up if we have the courage or foolishness to follow the trail long enough: do we trust God to be good? Do we believe that he puts us exactly where he wants us? Have we genuinely given all our days to the Lord to have him order them as he sees fit? Do we trust that it’s all for our good and his glory? Embracing tent duty means looking at odd, discouraging or dry seasons of our lives and leaning into the grace of God. It is a reckless abandonment to the goodness and sovereignty of God. He is forever faithful or he does not exist at all; there are no other choices.

those are all sobering questions.  And they basically sum up the questions that have been swirling around in my head since I got back from Vietnam.  I thought Vietnam was going to be a talking with God "face-to-face, as a man speaks to his friend" kind of experience, but it turned out to be more of a tent duty experience.  It was definitely an odd, discouraging, and dry season in my life, and I'm still asking God what it was all for.  

"He is forever faithful or he does not exist at all."  That's a hard phrase for me to believe, but one that I want to believe with all my heart.  It's still difficult for me to believe that God was completely faithful to me in Vietnam.  Somehow, it's hard for me to believe that it was all for His glory and my good.  But I want to believe.  I want to have faith in the promises of God. 

Maybe more on this later...