The Burning Bush

Exodus 3 describes the encounter between God and Moses when God tells Moses to free his people, enslaved by the Egyptians. God calls Moses to the mountain and draws his attention by speaking to him through a burning bush. As Moses approaches the bush ablaze, God orders him to remove his sandals because the ground is holy. As God explains to Moses what he is going to do, God says something that is foreshadowing what Jesus will say in the new testament. When Moses asks “what if they ask me who you are?” Jesus replies “I Am Who I Am.” Now, if you are just skimming through the story I could understand being like “Man, God has some sass.” But the reply was to set up the way that Jesus would approach answering the “who are you” question. Jesus would always reply with “I Am.”  Which alludes to this passage directly.

Aside from the historical significance/significance to the plot (depending on what you believe) of this encounter between God and Moses, the story also conveys a theme that has always been close to my heart. The burning bush is a perfect example of listening for God’s voice in nature.  Before I was able to fully comprehend this story as a kid, I would often ask myself “how come I can’t  talk to God like these guys do?” Well, this story would eventually provide me with the answer that I have to actively seek God’s wisdom out, and constantly be looking in nature among other things to listen for it.

I don’t have too many personal connections with fire, so I don’t have a long tale of how I was stranded in the woods and had to make fire with only wood, saliva and rocks. However, I do enjoy myself some fires and fireworks especially. This is probably because as a kid, I was terrified of all things fire, so now I’m making up with that disinterest with over-interest. This past summer, one of my friends thought she could make a ping pong ball explode by wrapping it in foil and lighting it. I knew this wasn’t going to work, but I let her try anyway (like a good friend). Well, she wrapped the ball up and lit it, and just held it there, the foil just smoked until it eventually carried a flame, at which point I poked fun at her and yelled “BOOM” This turned out to be a mistake, as she proceeded to throw the flaming ping pong ball at me. It hit me and burned my pants, and charred the fabric. So, that’s my experience with fire and how it ruined one of my favorite pairs of  pants. Lesson: Don’t let a homeschooler do “science experiments”