Is God in your equation? - Exodus 33

I was contemplating further on Exodus 33 and especially in verses 2&3:

"I will send an angel before you and drive out the Canaanites, Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. Go up to the land flowing with milk and honey. But I will not go with you, because you are a stiff-necked people and I might destroy you on the way.”

God said that he will do just as He promised but He will not go with the people? I asked the question, "Will anything have changed if God was not there?". I think not. The angel would have done exactly as what the Lord had commanded. The end-result would be the same. BUT - God was not in thee equation.

Sometimes when we insist on our way, when we want to do what we think is right, God will just allow us to carryon with our own desires. Yes all the blessings will be there. It will look as it God has sanctioned it but God  may not have approved it. In today's theology we call it the Plan B.

Only at the end we would realize that it was not God's will in the first instance. There is always the danger of insisting that its God's will and plan, because many times, our wants and desire often eclipses God's will. And being in the shadows without clear visibility, we are forced to sugar-coat our insistence into a convincing argument that it was God who said it. Tragic, but sadly it's the reality. Because its with the same Holy Scriptures, false cults have risen and have justified their existence with convincing audacity. 

God does not add sorrow to His blessings - Proverbs 10:22 - The blessing of the LORD makes a person rich, and he adds no sorrow with it.

Hence its so important that we discern the will of God in all that we do. It takes a lot of prayer and discernment. At the end is there the peace of God in our hearts because He does not add any sorrow to our blessings.

But Moses was very clear. If God is not going, "We are not moving". To him, God's presence was more important than all the blessings, because it distinguishes them from the other people (Exodus 33:16):

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?”

How true!!. The people in the world have have more blessings that us in terms of physical blessings. But they don't have God. We christians have the Holy Spirit residing in us. The question is: "Does the presence of the Holy Spirit in us, distinguish us from the rest". Can people say, we are the people of God. Can people see the fruit of the Spirit in our lives or the gifts operational in our shrives?.

What distinguishes us from the rest? God in the equation.

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