By un-faith I do not mean open rejection of God, but the slow draining of trust that happens while we wait for Jesus’ return—what Israel felt at Sinai when Moses lingered on the mountain and what we today feel while Christ is in heaven at the right hand of the Father, out of sight. It is the feeling of distance a believer begins to sense when he or she does not stay anchored daily in the Lord through the Scriptures.
The children of Israel stood at the foot of Mount Sinai with the dust of Egypt still clinging to their memories. They had seen the Nile turned to blood, felt the terror of the final plague, and walked between walls of water while Pharaoh’s armies drowned behind them. The song of Moses was still fresh on their lips: “The Lord is my strength and song, and he has become my salvation” (Exodus 15:2). Yet only weeks later, when Moses disappeared into the cloud to commune with the God of Israel, their confidence began to melt like wax in the desert sun. The mountain thundered, the trumpet of God sounded, and the people trembled—but trembling soon turned into doubting.
They said to Aaron, “As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him” (Exodus 32:1). How quickly gratitude gave way to suspicion. The same people who had cried out for deliverance now whispered about returning to bondage. Egypt, which had been a house of slavery, began to look strangely comfortable. Memory is a deceitful artist; it paints yesterday in soft colors and forgets the chains. Instead of waiting for the Lord who had never failed them, they demanded a god they could see and touch. From melted earrings, they fashioned a golden calf and called it their deliverer.
The tragedy was not merely that they made an idol, but that they exchanged the living God for something small enough to fit in their hands. They grew weary of waiting. The cloud on the mountain felt distant, and Moses felt absent, and absence tested their faith. The Lord had brought them out of Egypt in a single night, but forming Egypt out of their hearts would take far longer. Freedom frightened them because freedom requires trust.
This ancient story is not locked in the pages of Exodus; it walks beside the church today. After his resurrection, Jesus led his disciples to the Mount of Olives. “While they watched, he was taken up, and a cloud received him out of their sight” (Acts 1:9). Two men in white promised that he would return in the same manner. The disciples went back to Jerusalem with joy, but the centuries that followed have stretched that joy into waiting. Like Israel at Sinai, we live between a mighty deliverance and a promised return, and the space between can feel uncomfortably long.
When the Lord is out of view, the world begins to whisper. Modern Christians do not melt gold to shape calves, yet we are skilled at crafting subtler idols. We bow before the glitter of money, the applause of fame, the security of success. We measure our worth by numbers on screens and balances in accounts. These idols do not moo like a calf, but they demand the same sacrifice—our trust, our time, our hearts. The apostle John warned, “Little children, keep yourselves from idols” (1 John 5:21), knowing that every generation must hear the command anew.
Why do we reach for these things? For the same reason Israel reached for the calf—we grow anxious when God seems slow. Jesus warned that the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches can choke the word (Matthew 13:22). Waiting exposes what we truly love. If our hope rests only on what we can see, we will trade the unseen glory of Christ for visible trinkets. The church is called to live by faith, “looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2), even when the clouds hide him from sight.
Yet there is a better memory to hold than the false memory of Egypt. Israel forgot that the God who descended on Sinai was the same God who heard their groans in slavery. Christians must remember that the Christ who ascended in the cloud is the same Christ who touched lepers, forgave sinners, and conquered death. He is not absent; he is preparing a place. He promised, “I will come again and receive you to myself” (John 14:3). Waiting is not abandonment; it is the hallway between promise and fulfillment.
The remedy for restless hearts is not a new strategy but an old obedience. Moses returned from the mountain with the words of life, and the people were called to choose whom they would serve. Joshua later echoed the challenge: “Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve… but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” (Joshua 24:15). The church must make the same declaration amid a marketplace of glittering alternatives.
Every day we stand, in spirit, at the foot of another mountain—the hill called Calvary. There the true image of God was not fashioned by human hands but revealed in the face of Jesus Christ. The cross unmasks every idol by showing the price of our redemption. When we remember his body broken and his blood shed, the golden calves of our age lose their shine.
The good news is that the Lord did not leave his people to wait alone. Before Jesus ascended, he spoke a promise as sure as Sinai’s thunder: “I will pray the Father, and he will give you another Helper, that he may abide with you forever—the Spirit of truth” (John 14:16–17). The disciples who watched the cloud receive him were not abandoned or orphaned. At Pentecost the same God who once descended in fire on the mountain descended again, not upon stone but upon human hearts. The Comforter came to do in us what Moses could not do for Israel—to keep our faith alive while heaven seems silent.
The Holy Spirit is God’s answer to un-faith. When trust begins to drain away, he reminds us of the words of Christ (John 14:26). When the world whispers its glittering lies, he opens the Scriptures and makes them burn within us. When our knees grow weak in the long corridor of waiting, he strengthens us with power in the inner man (Ephesians 3:16). Israel had only a cloud to watch from afar; we have the Spirit dwelling near—closer than breath, nearer than fear.
This is why the church can wait without turning back to Egypt. “The love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us” (Romans 5:5). He convicts us when new idols begin to form, and he comforts us when the ache of distance becomes heavy. The Spirit teaches us to pray when we do not know how, interceding with groanings deeper than words (Romans 8:26). What Sinai lacked, the church has received—the living presence of God within.
Therefore our waiting is different from Israel’s waiting. They looked upward and wondered if Moses would return. We look inward and find the witness of the Spirit testifying that we are children of God (Romans 8:16). The same Jesus who ascended has not merely promised to come back; he has already come near through the Spirit he sent. Every time the Scriptures are opened, every time the bread is broken, every time a trembling heart chooses obedience over idols, the Comforter is at work keeping us faithful.
So let us not grieve the Spirit by drifting into un-faith (Ephesians 4:30). Let us stay anchored daily in the Word he inspired, the very breath that keeps the soul from wandering. When doubts rise like desert winds, may we listen for his quiet voice rather than the noisy marketplace of the world. The Spirit points us continually to Christ, teaching us to say with confidence, “Even so, come, Lord Jesus” (Revelation 22:20).
The cloud will not remain forever. The One who went up will come down, and the Spirit who sustains us now will present the church as a bride prepared for her Bridegroom. Until that day, we walk not as orphans but as a people indwelt—comforted, corrected, and empowered from above.
May the Holy Spirit keep our hearts steady in the waiting, our hands free of idols, our voices faithful in proclaiming the Gospel, and our eyes fixed on the returning King. Amen