EXODUS 13:21-22

By day the Lord went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so that they could travel by day or night. Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night left its place in front of the people.

TO PONDER

Can you imagine? Would you ever get used to the sight? You wake up from your tent and step outside and there, at the front of the camp is a column of white cloud (or perhaps it was grey stormy clouds complete with lightning and thunder). Or as you gather around your own measly camp fire to eat your evening meal you realise that the warmth you feel is not coming from your own fire but from the pillar of fire which reaches up into the sky and put out enough light and heat to allow you and your roughly 2 million travelling companions to continue travelling through the night.

What an incredible and miraculous sign of God's presence. Surely, faced with that kind of experience you would have no trouble trusting that God was leading you!? But just stop for a moment and think. What are the ways you have seen God at work in your life or the lives of your friends and family. What disasters has God averted, what healing has he brought, what insights has he given that have led you out of the places you have been stuck, and into His light and life.

We might not have a pillar of cloud or fire, but God shows us every day the things that He is doing. He gives us His word, He gives us His Son, His Spirit and His Church, to help us see the path He is laying out before us. All he asks us to do is follow.

PRAYER: Lord God, help me to see the ways you are leading and guiding me. Give me a hunger for your word and receptivity to your Holy Spirit so that I might boldly and confidently follow where you lead. Amen

Today's devotion written by Mathew von Stanke, LifeWay Newcastle