***As a housekeeping note, this is the last post until at least Monday. Have a good weekend, and if you are in the path of either of the major hurricanes hitting the Pacific coast of Mexico or the Gulf coast of Florida today, stay safe.

“Moses said to the Lord, ‘Look, you have told me, “Lead this people up,” but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. You said, “I know you by name, and you have also found favor with me.” Now if I have indeed found favor with you, please teach me your ways, and I will know you, so that I may find favor with you. Now consider that this nation is your people.’ And he replied, ‘My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.'” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Have you ever listened to someone else pray not primarily to hear what they said, but for how they pray so you can learn from them? That’s a different thing than just listening to pray with them in your heart and mind. Listening to and reading other prayers is a great way to learn how to pray. Fortunately, the Scriptures contain many examples of people praying for us to learn from. In some cases, they even include God’s answer to the prayer. Over the next handful of posts, we are going to look at some prayers Moses prayed as he interacted with God to see what we can learn from him. Let’s listen in closely.

Moses had been given an enormous task. He was now supposed to lead Israel from Sinai to the Promised Land. As it would soon become clear, he was going to be leading them a lot longer than that. That in itself was a big deal. He never signed up to be the leader of a nation, and yet here he was. To make matters even harder, in response to the people’s sin with the golden calf, God had announced that He wasn’t going to be going with them along the way. He was going to send a messenger to accompany them. If Moses was nervous about the task that was facing him before all of this happened, now he was downright anxious about it.

I can imagine this scene unfolding in that tent Moses set up on the outside of camp. This was no dispassionate conversation. This was a desperate cry from a man who sincerely wanted to do what God had called him to do, but who didn’t have any idea how he was going to do it on his own.

Moses strode through the camp toward the tent as everyone watched from the entrance of their own tents. As he arrived at the tent, fully aware of the eyes of the nation on him, the people fell down in their places and worshiped the Lord from where they were. Then Moses went into his own little tent with the Lord as the cloud of the Lord’s presence came down, and he fell apart. He dropped to his knees, fell on his face, and cried out to the Lord.

I remember times over the last 16 years of parenting (which sounds just crazy to me when I type it out loud like that) when we were facing one challenge or another and one of the boys asked me if things were going to be okay. I put on a brave face and told them it would be, and then when I was alone, cried out desperately to God for His help in making sure it was going to be okay. He hasn’t failed me yet.

Moses cried out to the Lord, “Look, you’ve told me to lead this people up to the Promised Land, but you haven’t said who’s going with me.” I can’t do this alone, Lord. You told me it was always going to be you who was with me, doing all the work. I was just going to come along for the ride and do what you commanded.

One of the ways to pray we regularly see in the Scriptures is when someone seeking God reminds Him of the things He has already said. We don’t do this because He doesn’t remember. He’s God. He doesn’t forget anything. So, why do it? Because in reminding Him, we are really reminding ourselves. We are showing that we listened to Him. We are agreeing with something He said and eagerly looking forward to His doing it. This kind of prayer is about putting us in alignment and agreement with His will. God always keeps His word. If He has said something is going to happen in a certain way, it is going to happen that way, and we are perfectly free and encouraged to ask for Him to do things that way.

The next prayer we see Moses praying here falls along much the same lines as the first, but the focus is just a little bit different. Instead of reminding God of something He said in order to see things happen a certain way, He reminds God of something He said in order to know Him more. “You said, ‘I know you by name, and you have also found favor with me.’ Now if I have indeed found favor with you, please teach me your ways, and I will know you, so that I may find favor with you.” In other words, “Lord, if you have said these things are true about me, then help me to know you more so they can indeed be true about me.”

We have talked about this before, but it is easy to find ourselves stuck in the cycle of thinking that prayer is mostly about getting God to do this or that for us or for someone else. It is about influencing outcomes in the direction we would prefer. Such an impoverished view of prayer will never do much for us or in the world around us. While prayer certainly includes our asking God for things, that’s only a corollary to its real purpose. The real purpose of prayer is to know God more. It is about building and strengthening a relationship with Him. That’s what Moses is pursuing in this second part of his prayer.

Another great way to pray, then, is to ask God to teach us more about Himself. This is a prayer He is always going to answer. His answers will come in all sorts of different ways. It may be that He puts someone else in your path who has been following Him longer than you have and from whom you can learn more about who He is. Perhaps He directs you back to His word so that you can learn more about Him from His primary source of self-revelation. It could be that He simply grants you greater wisdom and knowledge by the working of His Spirit in you. However it happens, when we earnestly seek to know God more, He will meet us and teach us. This is, after all, one of the primary purposes of prayer in the first place.

In the end here, God answers His prayer. He grants His request. He reveals more of Himself and assures Moses that He isn’t going to be alone. God’s presence will go with Moses so that he won’t be alone, and He will give Moses rest. This doesn’t mean a good night’s sleep. This is a reference to the larger rest that comes when we trust in Him and pursue doing life His way. It is a rest from fears and anxieties and burdens and worries. It is a contentment that is rooted in our understanding of who He is and what He is like. It is the ability to simply trust in Him and do life His way.

If you are struggling with how to pray or what to pray for today, Moses’s interaction with God gives you a good start. Spend some time in the Scriptures and remind Him of some of the things He’s said about you and for you. Then, ask for His help and direction in coming to know Him more. Give it a try and see what comes of it. The results may not be instant, but if you genuinely give it a try, over time you just might be surprised.