Mount Sinai Moments.

There's the old adage: No news is good news.
Not always a true statement, right?
Amazing date with a great guy? No phone call the next day, week, month, ever? Decidedly proves no news is bad news.
No call after an interview for your dream job? No news is definitely bad news.
Sure these things can work for our good, but that doesn't always help in the moment.
In times of waiting and hoping, we can really get ourselves in a twittering frenzy. Or is it just me?
At times, God's silence, or perceived silence, is so deafening it can shake us and our faith.
I know many that are waiting on the Lord to answer some tough questions. When will work come? Can I trust this man I've married? Will I ever have a family? Why did you let me go through that? Why? Why? Why?
Sometimes why translates to: Where are You?
I'm in my own cloud of silence. Waiting for news and wondering what the silence means. Has God forgotten what He started?
Has He forgotten me?
I don't know the big answers. I do know there is so much mystery in the how and why of this life we're living.
And I know my God. I know that He works all things for my good.
Which is amazing when you think about Who He Is. That I could question Him at all is insulting and it's good to remind myself that He's got everything under control.
When I feel out of control, He is not rattled.
When my faith shakes, His Presence is no less true.
When I am in a cloud of silence, it does not mean that He is not working out His plan for me in His infinite timing and grace and wisdom.
In Exodus, when the LORD is establishing His Law with His people, Moses goes before Him on Mount Sinai. In chapter 24, verse 12 He says to Moses, "Come up to Me on the mountain and remain there..."
Verse 15-16 says, "Then Moses went up to the mountain, and the cloud covered the mountain. The glory of the LORD rested on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it for six days; and on the seventh day he called to Moses from the midst of the cloud."
I'm always amazed at this passage. Moses followed the Lord's instructions and waited...for six days for the Lord to speak to him.
Can you see it? He's on the top of a mountain, separate from the people, surrounded by the glory of the Lord. The air is charged and thick with promise...but there is silence. Deafening silence.
I would have begun to worry, just a bit, the first day. With each discouraging sunset and each anticipated sunrise, my apprehension and anxiety would surely have been increasingly unbearable.
Or would it have been?
It's hard in the bustle of our lives and daily activities to stop and look around at the glory of the Lord that surrounds us in that place of charged anticipation. While most of us aren't able to go climb a mountain and sit quietly alone, in only the Presence of the Divine, for 6 days, we can take advantage of moments that are reserved for Him. Have you ever woken in the middle of the night for no reason? Been stuck in line somewhere? Waited a very long time in traffic? Wondered what in the world is taking your child so long to get their shoes on? Could these be our moments on Mount Sinai? Our invitation to step into glory and wait on the Lord? We need to slow down at time to remember our place before Him, to appreciate His majesty, to remember that, although He does not tell us everything with the speed of the internet, He still answers. He still sustains. He is not absent. He is holy and good and patient.
If I could remember this, maybe my impatience in life would wane, ever so slowly, while I partake in my own Mount Sinai Moments.
And at the appointed time, what a sweet and powerful time it will be when He calls to us from the midst of the cloud.