“Thus the Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. Then Moses would return to the camp, but his young assistant Joshua son of Nun would not leave the tent.”
Exodus 33:11 BSB
This was the verse I highlighted this morning from God’s Word and I can’t get that mental picture out of my head. It’s mind blowing if you could just see it. The Lord God Face to Face talking to Moses as friends, companions, “as a man speaks to His friend.” What an epitaph! To have that to be what you are remembered as, “Here lies Kellye Jones, friend of God.”
We recently went to The Woodlands to see my daughter and her family. Kevin and I had to see them face to face. We had FaceTimed them off and on over the past couple of months, but there is just something about Face to Face. Our oldest grandson was getting ready to head off for his second year of college and our second grandson was now driving himself to high school. Time slow down!
We have entered the last month on the Jewish calendar. The month of Elul. It is the Hebrew month of return. It is the last month before the Jewish new year begins and the High Holy Days on the Jewish calendar. It began at sundown on Wednesday, August 12 and ends on Friday, September 11, 2026. Everything about this month intrigues me. I feel God stirring a curiosity in me, a connectivity deep in my soul. Especially now that I see this month ends on my birthday. I hear a call from God to return to Him. It is tradition to read Psalm 27 throughout this month and there is one verse that calls to me.
“I heard your voice in my heart say, “Come, seek my face;” my inner being responded, “Yahweh, I’m seeking your face with all my heart.””
Psalms 27:8 TPT
It is an echo. Adonai calls out from His throne room into all of eternity, “Come seek My Face!” And from our side of Creation we echo back, “Yahweh, I’m seeking Your Face with all my heart!”
The words, “Face” and “seek” are tossed back and forth across the canyon we call earth. God calls out first. It is His invitation to come find Him. It is God who places this longing in our hearts. He is the initiator of this seeking story line of ours. We seek His Face because He first called us to seek Him. This desire to be a friend of God was God’s idea all along.
I think about this longing after my week with my daughter’s family. I am thankful for the technology that allows us to see each other on the phone. It is appropriately called “FaceTime,” but it can’t compare to seeing them Face to Face. To be able to reach out and give them an actual hug, and to sit and eat with each other. It filled a void I had been missing since I had seen them last.
I am just realizing this is the same type of longing God has been weaving in me over the past month. “Return, Seek my Face.” In this verse God tells us to seek His Face, not His Hand. You can seek God’s hand, His help, or His gifts, there is nothing wrong with that. But God’s call here in Psalm 27 aims higher. To seek His Face is to seek His Presence, to seek His Person, His Character, and His Countenance. It is to want His Glory to turn toward you to light up His Path. One scholar framed it as, “It is the difference between loving what someone gives you and loving them.
This is what the month of Elul is all about, retraining your focus from God’s Hand to His Face.
So for the rest of this month don’t settle for a FaceTime call with God. Look up! Go out to the fields and Seek His Face. Sit down with Him. Let God call you His friend. A friend loves at all time. No greater love has anyone than the love God has for us. He desires this friendship with us. He is our constant Companion.
God invites, “Seek My Face,” you answer, “Your Face I will seek. I will long for. I will search out Your Presence.”
And now because God so loved the world He sent His only Son
Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 4:6 “the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” God’s Face has an actual Face and that Face is Jesus. FromPsalm 27:6 we can now conclude, “look at Jesus and you will see the Face of God.”