Nudge: Bear Witness (9/1/19)

One of the greatest mistakes we can make in this life is to assume that God’s presence and call is limited to certain “holy” times and places. We’re inclined to think that God-moments only happen in church, or during particularly religious experiences, or when we are especially deserving of them. We tend to look for God in the extraordinary, when more often, God shows up most powerfully in the unexpected and ordinary moments of our lives.

Moses had one of those moments. While tending Jethro’s sheep in the wilderness, a bush caught fire but was not consumed—an extraordinary event in the most ordinary of places. Moses took notice, paused, beheld the beauty and mystery of it all, and heard a distinct call that would change his life and the course of history for the Hebrew people.

Every bush is burning around us, but it takes grace, patience, and imagination to awaken to the God who speaks through them. How do we recognize the signs of God’s in-breaking presence in the ordinary world? How can we trust and respond to them when they seem so unlikely and unexpected?