Going Outside the Camp

Late yesterday afternoon I was in the office of the Post Office's Bulk Mailing Center. I was waiting for the nice clerk to process the approximately 1,000 fund-raising letters that our ministry was sending out that day. He told me it would be about a 20 minute wait. Being the reader that I am, I seized this opportunity, went out to my truck and grabbed a book that my prayer warrior friend, Carolyn Dycus, had loaned me -- "Outside the Camp" by Terry Tekyl.*

As I sat on a plastic chair in that cramped sterile office, with other customers coming in and out with their trays full of letters to mail, I experienced a rather holy moment. God really spoke to me through the few pages of Tekyl's thirty day guide for prayer. He referred to the "tent of meeting" that Moses set up outside the camp of the Israelites, while they were wandering in the wilderness. It was in that tent where the people would go to "inquire of the Lord." (Ex. 33:7)

Then Tekyl's gives this wonderful application to believers in Christ today:

The 'camp' is where we work and live. It's the motion of life - read the paper, go to the office, haul the kids, runm errands, eat super, watch TV and go to bed so we can do it all again the next day. We find a sort of comfort in the grind that binds us.

His point is that if we stay mainly in our "camp" of comfort and routine, we can miss out on significant moments with the Lord. I realize that we can commune with the Lord throughout our day of working, talking with others, exercising, going to the grocery store, etc. And yet something significant happens when we break from our routine, take some time away to be with the Lord and go to a place where we would more likely tune into His voice.

Going outside the camp may mean turning off the TV for 30 minutes and spending some time hearing a praise CD and worshipping the Lord. It could be going to a Starbucks to drink coffee, read your Bible and write in your journal. Or going to a park, sitting on a bench, enjoying some anonymity and asking God to speak to you.

The point is, break from the familiar and then, as Tekyl says, "seek God, press in more closely." "The focus is on God and his pleasure, not his storehouse for us. The goal is not to get another strategy or a bigger vision, but simply to hunger after the One who created us and yearns to be with us."

My wife is out of town for a couple days. Though I miss her a lot, I can see this as an opportunity to break from the routine and seek more of God. Tonight after my exercise and dinner, I just may retreat to a chapel at a church in town that has 24 hour access. And there, outside the camp, away from my routine, I will do nothing but seek more of God. And I just may find out that seeking Him and knowing Him more is all I need.

Jim

* Outside the Camp -- A Thirty-Day Guide by Terry Tekyl (Muncie, IN: Prayer Point Press, 20o1)