WHY IS THAT ON FIRE?

The Bible doesn’t give us a lot of information about the forty years Moses spent in the desert after he fled from Egypt (Exodus 2:11-25). We do know that the man who appeared at the end of this desert sojourn was vastly different from the man who had run for his life years earlier. The desert years were formative, the change was drastic. The hot-headed, successful, highly-educated future leader of Egypt had become a humble shepherd caring for the flocks of his father-in-law.

When we are reintroduced to Moses, he is eighty years old and living in the backside of nowhere (Exodus 3:1). In Egypt, Moses had a future as big and bright as the horizon, but now—nothing but emptiness and a few sheep! The haughty adopted son of Pharoah’s daughter was now a shell of a man, simply existing, and I am sure that from time to time he reminisced about what might have been.

Out in the desert caring for sheep, Moses was a nomad wandering through the remainder of his life. On the dry and dusty plains, one of the few things he had to contend with was simply dodging the scrub trees that dotted the landscape. There was nothing he could do but walk around them; they were everywhere and there were so many, he just ignored them and continued on his wandering path.

I think the bushes that Moses was dodging are a type of the dozens of little incidents that make up our lives and dot our days, little situations that we quickly navigate and forget. “I meant to make that call or send that e-mail. Oops! I dropped my phone—I don’t want to talk to him right now. I intended to read my Bible today. I don’t have enough time to work on that project right now.” On and on it goes! These mini-incidents litter the landscape of our days and we traverse them with little or no thought and move on.

This day, as Moses wandered out in the wilderness, one of those bushes erupted in bright flames, but it didn’t burn up. The fire caught Moses’ attention and he stopped to see what it was all about. Suddenly God began to talk to him out of the bush. God unexpectedly took something that was a part of Moses everyday experience, lit it up, and spoke through it to change his life.

This was the incident that began the process of taking Moses back to Egypt on a divine rescue mission. The burning bush was really not that important in itself, God simply used it to get Moses’ attention. The really important thing about this encounter was that God spoke to Moses.

One of the ways God speaks to us is through everyday experiences. You won’t expect it but suddenly you will know that something unusual is happening and you need to take a moment and find out what it is. That’s when God will start speaking to you! Your burning bush may be in your daily devotional reading, it may be in a conversation with a friend and, amazingly, it may be in church while the pastor is preaching and your mind is wandering. It’s happened to me there more than once (the wandering mind part).

Moses spent every day dodging the scrub trees but when the burning bush caught his attention, Exodus 3:3 says, “Moses thought, I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.” Verse four says, “When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush….” When Moses stopped and focused on what was happening, God began to speak.

In 1958 a young pastor in western Pennsylvania wandered into his study late one evening and in a distracted way picked up a copy of Life Magazine. Little did David Wilkerson know that a two-page drawing of teenage gang members on trial for murder would become his burning bush. God spoke to him that night and he followed the Lord’s instructions to go to New York City. That burning bush experience led to the Teen Challenge ministry and fifty-two years later, it is still going worldwide. Every year thousands of desperate people are ministered to and rescued from the clutches of sin and addiction through Teen Challenge. It all began when that pastor innocently picked up a magazine and those pages became a burning bush.

Don’t go looking for a burning bush; far too many waste their lives doing that. They rush from one meeting to the next, from one church to another, watching one TV program after another, looking for a burning bush. Instead, set your heart on following Him, loving Him, consuming His Word, and rejoicing in the wonderful life He has given you.

The burning bush will find you and when you pause to see what that fire is all about, God will start speaking!