Glory, Cherubim, & Wheels
Ezekiel chapters 1 and 10 give us a detailed look at God's mobile throne, His manifest presence. I jokingly call it the "glory-mobile."
What we see is both extraordinary and peculiar. The throne sits upon a vast platform or expanse. Underneath the throne and supporting platform are four cherubic creatures, each with four faces, carrying the entire apparatus. Beside each creature is a wheel. The wheels, the creatures, and the manifest presence have a perfectly coordinated relationship. Oh friends, the Spirit of the Lord is speaking.
Four Creatures, Four Faces
Ezekiel sees four cherubim with four faces each (Eze 1:5,6,10). These four faces illustrate God's four main attributes, His "faces". This is why there are four gospels (not three or five or ten or two), each presenting Christ in a different light. This is why four rivers flowed from Eden (Gen 2:10), and why Jesus then compared the Holy Spirit to rivers (Jn 7:38,39). The illustrations are myriad: the Levitical breastplate had four rows of jewels (Ex 28:17), the Spirit blows from four directions (Eze 37:9,10), four seasons, four main personality types, four chambers of the heart, four heart valves, and so on.
Romans 1:20 says everything created and made is to reveal God's attributes (NKJV, underline added): For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made...
Four Wheels
In all my years of born-again life and ministry, I have known very few Christians who thoroughly comprehended and apprehended divine cycles. It is a trying concept, for several reasons.
The concept of cycle is so important to God that He created seemingly-endless types of them to bombard and trap our attention: the water cycle, sleep cycle, cell cycle, digestive cycle, menstrual cycle, season cycle, time cycle, day-night cycle, planetary cycle, lunar cycle, weather cycle, agricultural cycle...I could fill up this page. And, He created four living wheels to transport His mobile throne, His manifest presence (Eze 1:15-28). These wheels are an embarrassingly simple representation of cycles, but a very specific kind of cycle coordinated with the cherubim.
The Cherubim Set the Wheels in Motion
Ezekiel points out the wheels are set in motion by the cherubim (Eze 1:19-21). He says in 1:19, "When the living creatures moved, the wheels beside them moved."
Similarly, when God moves in the earth or among His people or in our personal life through one of His attributes, a new cycle (season) is set in motion, and His manifest presence rides that attribute and cycle. If we reject or miss the attribute He is emphasizing and the cycle it initiates, we will grope for that mobile throne where it will not be found. The dryness you lament is not God pulling away (unless you are in willful sin), it is Him shifting attributes and cycles. You simply have not perceived or adjusted to the new face He is showing you and the new cycle it brought about.
God's manifest presence/mobile throne is not trite or automatic. It is coordinated with the attribute He is emphasizing and the new cycle it brings. In Ezekiel's language, all three move together in flawless synchronicity: the manifest presence (mobile throne), the attributes (faces), and the cycles (wheels). In the Chronicler's language, this means understanding the present time or cycle (1Chr 12:32). In Jesus' language, this means interpreting the present time or cycle (Lk 12:56).
If we reject or miss the specific face God is showing and the cycle it initiates, the manifest presence will not land and stay in our midst. This is why some Christians, ministries, churches, even denominations and movements, seem so devoid of His manifest presence. They did not recognize (or like) when He revealed Himself as a lion or ox or man or eagle, and therefore, they did not roll with the wheels turning a new cycle, and therefore, the mobile throne did an Ichabod and departed (1Sam 4:21, Eze 11:23). This does not at all mean they lost their salvation or the indwelling Holy Spirit, it means the manifest presence is not landing or abiding in their midst at the moment. Or in Peter's words, the Spirit of glory is not resting upon them (1Pet 4:14).
The Wheels are Covered With Eyes
Ezekiel notices the wheels are covered in eyes round-about (Eze 1:18). Another simple illustration that is so obvious it can be obscure.
Eyes, eyes, eyes everywhere = comprehensive perspective. The cycles of God's self-revelation build in us comprehensive perspective. With each turn of that wheel you gain more eyes. By cooperating with God over many cycles you accumulate so very many eyes, new angles of vision, comprehensive perspective, from all those wheel-turns.
To see physically, your two eyes are sufficient. But how do you see all of reality, reality that is multidimensional and transcends time, matter, and space? In the present form you cannot see it all at once. However, every turn of the wheel comes with more eyes to see more and more and more and more.
Eventually you take on the nature of the wheel and you live life in a rotating fashion, circling every person and situation with patient, penetrating, perceptive eyes. How many individuals brought you headache or heartache because you did not circle them with enough eyes, but embraced them too quickly based on what you saw with only one or two eyes? How many situations tripped or tricked you because you did not circle it patiently and perceptively with plenty of eyes?
The Cherubim Have Human Hands
Ezekiel notices something else way, way bizarre: the cherubim have human hands underneath their wings (Eze 10:8,21). So also God reveals His attributes through humans hands--people. Whatever attribute He is emphasizing to you in this cycle will somehow be linked to a person(s), even if that person is not immediately obvious, like hands hidden underneath wings. As you seek the Lord about this, you may be surprised at whose hands have a cherubic grace for you. It may be someone hidden in plain sight already in front of you, or, it may be someone providentially or miraculously placed in your path you did not know before.