Camping in God’s Tent: Living in His Dwelling Place

by Andy Lee

Please welcome guest blogger Andy Lee once more as she takes us on a camping trip with God.

Our first camping trip was a disaster. A sleepless night in the tent did not help matters, and my efforts to make a hearty breakfast the morning of our departure made it even worse. As I struggled to clean the cooked eggs off the skillet, Mike’s patience melted in the warm morning sun. My soldier husband, accustomed to MRE’s (meals-ready-to-eat) during deployment and his “camping trips” with fellow soldiers, was not prepared for camping with his wife and two children under five. Neither one of us really knew what we were doing.

Tempers flared, words flew, and I thought it might be the beginning of the end. After two hours of silence during the drive back home, we finally cooled down. The drive had given both of us time to consider the fiasco. I learned that you eat cereal the morning you pack up and load the car to leave the campsite. But I think we both decided that our marriage would last longer if we only camped in hotels.

Camping in the Bible

There’s a lot of camping in the Bible. Personally, I’ve always felt sympathy for Sarah when Abraham told her they were packing up and leaving for a camping trip to an unknown destination. She left her home to follow her husband and a God she did not know. She must have had great faith, but their camping journey and the wait for their promised son was long and weary. I’m sure they had sleepless nights in the tent and breakfast fiascos too.

Moses led the other camping trip—one that turned out to be a lot longer than planned. Can you imagine over 2 million people camping together in the desert? When I read the stories of how they grumbled against God, I am quick to judge until God reminds me of my first camping trip with Mike Lee. Their journey was not easy. Miraculous, yes, but not easy.

God Likes to Camp

I treasure this ancient story of God’s provision and presence during the Israelites’ desert days. Despite the consequences of their complaining and the moments when divorce seemed inevitable, God camped with His people. He fulfilled Moses’s petition to go with them.

The LORD replied, "My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest." Then Moses said to him, "If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. . . . And the LORD said to Moses, "I will do the very thing you have asked, because I am pleased with you and I know you by name" (Exodus 33:15–17).

After God promised Moses He would go with them, He ordained the construction of a tent for His presence. It was a tent like no other–a portable temple called the tabernacle. Imagine the ornate beauty, the smells, and the colors of this tent as you read the scripture:

From what you have, take an offering for the Lord. Everyone who is willing is to bring to the Lord an offering of gold, silver and bronze; blue, purple and scarlet yarn and fine linen; goat hair; ram skins dyed red and another type of durable leather; acacia wood; olive oil for the light; spices for the anointing oil and for the fragrant incense… (Exodus 35: 4-8).

Moses kept a detailed record of this masterpiece in Exodus 35-40. After describing the painstaking work of the Spirit-filled craftsmen, Moses penned one of the most glorious scenes in the Bible—God “settling” into His house—His tent.

Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. Moses could not enter the tent of meeting because the cloud had settled on it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. In all the travels of the Israelites, whenever the cloud lifted from above the tabernacle, they would set out; but if the cloud did not lift, they did not set out—until the day it lifted. So the cloud of the Lord was over the tabernacle by day, and fire was in the cloud by night, in the sight of all the Israelites during all their travels (Exodus 40:34-38).

YHWH is a God who fulfills every promise. I have to believe the glory resting on the Tabernacle comforted them as it lit up the dark nights. I don’t think, however, they could’ve ever imagined that His next tent would be even more glorious and comforting.

A Tent of Flesh

1600 years after those cranky Israelites camped out with His Presence, God poured Himself into skin. John wrote, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).

Don’t miss the rich wording here. “Tabernacled” is another definition for the Greek word translated as “made his dwelling.” John did not want his readers to miss the significance of what God had done. There was no portable tent this time made of purple, scarlet, and blue covered with the skin of sea cows. His glory did not shine from a cloud. This time His glory shone from the beautiful loving-kindness and presence of Jesus. God walked in sandaled feet along the dusty roads of Galilee and Judea alongside simple, ordinary men and women. He healed the sick, and He spoke with wisdom and grace. He gave a new law, the law of love, and He lived out that new covenant by crawling up on a cross to take our punishment for our sins.

What kind of God does that?

A God who not only tabernacles among us but within us because of His love.

The Indwelling Jesus

Paul wrote this beautiful prayer for all believers:

“I pray out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith” (Ephesians 3:16–17).

The Greek word translated as “dwell” in this passage is katoikeō. The Hebrew-Greek Key Word Study Bible defines it as settling down and establishing a connection with the site. “One personally attaches himself to a locale designating it as his place of residence and accommodates the environment and territory to himself.”^[1]

When Paul used the word “dwell” in this passage of Ephesians, he was asking for more than Christ’s presence in our lives. Jesus isn’t moving in to simply rearrange the furniture or hang up his favorite Van Gogh. He’s no longer a cloud by day that lights up at night under His ginormous tent. He comes to establish a connection with us and accommodate our environment to himself. His loving connection with our hearts causes us to change, little by little, until we begin to look and love more like Him.

My Kind of Camping

I’m so thankful God did not divorce those cranky Israelites on their first camping trip with Him. I’m also thankful Mike Lee didn’t divorce me after ours, and we traded our tent for a camper. This life really is all about living with people and living with our God—our God who now dwells within us.

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Want to know more about dwelling in God’s tabernacle? Check out Terry’s book, A Place for Me in God’s Tent. Available from Barnes and Noble or Amazon, among other places, just in time for Christmas (Well, we can only hope.)

^[1]Zodhiates, The Hebrew-Greek Key Word Study Bible, NIV, Katoikeo, 1660.