Walking With Christ

Exodus 3:2 And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed.(ESV)

Yesterday, I spoke a bit about the progression of a relationship with God as patterned by the life of Moses. Today, I want to focus on a single part of that journey.

Moses was born a Jew, cast in the river to save his life, taken in by the queen and raised as a royal for forty years, killed a man, fled to the desert, then lived in that desert for nearly forty years as a shepherd before the day that changed his life and led, ultimately, to the world we know today. I’m sure it started off just like any other day. Moses took the sheep out for the day. He chased a goofy sheep that wandered off. He stopped the herd in a good place to feed them. Typical daily stuff. BOOM! Burning bush.

Moses lived as an Egyptian royal for forty years. Then he lived as a Jewish shepherd in the desert for forty years. He had enough time in each role to fully embrace what it meant to be that person. Then a bush that was on fire spoke to him.

A bit of clarity and a couple of points here.

1. The burning bush caught his attention.
a. The fire was obviously a potential danger to his flock, so, yeah, he was going to look.
b. As he watched the flaming bush, he noticed that it was not being consumed by the flames.
c. It wasn’t until he got curious and wanted a closer look that he heard the voice calling his name.
2. Once he was focused on the bush, “the angel of the Lord” (Jesus) spoke to him and called him by name.
a. “The angel of the Lord” (verse 2) said, “I am the God of your father” in verse 6.
b. Moses could have seen the fire and decided to move his flock away from the potential danger. He didn’t.
c. The fire was meant to get Moses attention. If he had been afraid of it or ignored it things would have been drastically different. Thankfully, he was curious instead of being afraid.
d. Called him by name. The fire called him by name. I don’t know about most of you, but if flames start calling my name, I’ll have flashbacks to one of the many horror movies I watched as a kid.
i. Calling him by name started the close and intimate relationship that Moses had with God. God shined a light (the fire) to get his attention. Moses responded.
3. God called Moses out of his daily routine.
a. Herding the sheep was something the Moses had been doing for decades. He knew the fields, streams, hills, and plains. He knew the sheep and they knew him.
b. Moses was pretty close to eighty years old at this point. He had settled down, raised a family, given up on the grand purpose that his life was called for. By all rights, Moses was past his prime and nearly ready to retire. He would go on to live for another forty years.
c. Moses still had some royal notions. He worked for his father-in-law, Jethro. He did not fully accept his cultural heritage. In verse 13, Moses says, “If I come to the people of Israel”. He didn’t say they were his people. He didn’t say they were his family. It seems that Moses still had some issues to work on. This is conjecture based on how he said what he said, but, assuming the translations are accurate, it shows that he had not fully accepted the he was one of the people.
4. This story is not quite parallel to when Jesus walked on water and was about to pass the disciples in the storm.
a. Moses saw the bush and turned to see what was going on before he heard the voice in the fire.
b. Jesus was going to pass the disciples by until He heard them calling for Him. He knew they were there. He knew they were panicking.
i. I wonder how many more stories of Jesus were played out before with human flaws changing the story before He came along to show us how it should be?
ii. I suspect that these two stories illustrate the two sides of the coin when it comes to communications with God. God doesn’t come and violently shake us when He wants to speak to us. No, He turns on the light and gives us the option to ignore it because He truly respects the gift of free will that He gave us. He will also continue to do what He is doing until we are willing to call out to Him. Then He will turn His face towards us to remind us of the tasks we have been given and the authority that comes with those commands. We are not told to do something without being given the full power and authority to get it done. The disciples were told to cross the sea. The storm didn’t change that plan. The disciples were just blind to the power they had been given. They could have calmed the storm themselves. They could have poofed over to the other shore. They could have walked on water to get there. They chose to remain inside the boundaries that the world had placed on them to keep them powerless.

Some of us have already had our burning bush moments. Like Moses, a death, followed by misplaced anger and an unforeseen rejection, is what led to me walking in the wilderness for quite a while. Like Moses, it was a short conversation with someone I didn’t know that prompted me to run back to God.

Have you had a burning bush moment? What was it like? If not, what was your call back to faith and which bible character do you know that recalls that pattern?