The Burning Bush

THE BURNING BUSH
One day God intervened supernaturally in the life of Moses, speaking to him from a burning bush that stayed alight until Moses received and understood God’s message to him.

Exodus 3:1 One day as Moses was tending the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian, out at the edge of the desert near Horeb, the mountain of God, suddenly 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. And Moses said, “I will turn aside to see this great sight, why the bush is not burned.” When the LORD saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” Then he said, “Do not come near; take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” And he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.
Then the LORD said, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians…
10. Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.” But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?” He said, “But I will be with you,
Moses then protests his unworthiness for the task, so we read on.
But Moses said, “They won’t believe me! They won’t do what I tell them to. They’ll say, ‘Jehovah never appeared to you!’” The Lord asked him. “What do you have there in your hand Moses?” And he replied, “A shepherd’s rod… (Exodus 4:1)

Moses was leading a very ordinary life looking after his father in law’s sheep, with a shepherd’s rod in his hand and God came into that ordinary life and said to Moses ‘What have you got in your hand?’ What he had in his hand was an ordinary part of his life as a shepherd, but it was to become something that God wanted to supernaturally empower. God had put that rod in his hand and created him to use it with skill and wisdom to be a good shepherd of his flocks. That rod was now to become the rod that parted the red sea. It also became the rod that caused water to flow supernaturally out of a rock so that God’s people could live and not die and drink from the rock and be refreshed. 
There were three forty-year stages in Moses’ one-hundred-and-twenty-year life. They were the three stages of nurture, development, and empowerment.

Stage 1 (nurture) – Moses grew up as a young man in the royal family of the Pharaoh after being rescued from the river as a baby by Pharaoh’s daughter. Pharaoh allowed Moses’ mother to nurture his young life, so he grew up taught in the ways of God and also instructed in the ways of Egypt. He became an important figure in the court of Pharaoh but when at age forty, having experienced freedom and independence he saw that two of his fellow Hebrews were being beaten up by an Egyptian guard. He got into reaction about such an unjust system and he attacked and killed the guard and had to bury him in the sand. He had rashly taken justice into his own hands and made a serious error of judgment. His unwise reaction to the injustice being done to his own people did not make any changes to the injustice around him and ended up with the Hebrews telling him to stay out of their business as he only made things worse for them. So, Moses had to get away from Egypt or he would have been severely punished and perhaps even lost his own life. 

Stage 2 (development) – He then spent forty years in the desert as a shepherd. He was humbled by real life and learned to act responsibly and within the limitations of his own humanity. He hadn’t changed anything concerning justice for his people as yet, but God was changing something in him, through experiences that developed his character requiring him to learn self-control, wisdom and patience.

Stage 3 (empowerment) – The burning bush - He was ready for God to take the natural skills and virtues and mature attitudes he now had about his life and to take him on a supernatural journey where Moses allowed God to work his loving and just and merciful purpose through him. He now began to respond to and be involved in the changes that God desired to fulfill in him and in the world of the lives of those around him - two million Jews being delivered out of Egypt, out of the hand of Pharoah.

Each one of these three forty-year experiences in the life of Moses illustrates a different manifestation of the progressive work of the purpose of God for Moses’ life.
The number forty narrative in the Bible speaks to us of appointed times of challenge and change where God manifests the divine power of his life working for us and with us. These appointed times don’t have to be periods of forty years or forty anything as they were with Moses. 

Jesus also had three ‘number forty’ stages in his life. He had a forty-day experience in the trial of his faith in the wilderness when he fasted and overcame the temptations of the devil. That was his second ‘forty’ experience. He also had a time of forty days on earth manifesting his risen life after his resurrection. That was his third and final number forty experience. His first ‘number forty’ experience was the time of forty weeks in the womb of Mary which was the manifestation of his incarnation.

In outlining the three stages of nurture and development and empowerment, we see examples in the lives of Moses and Jesus, and we can see examples in our own lives as well. The stages can be summarized broadly as.

Stage one - Privilege and protection of the time of nurture.
Moses in the court of Pharoah for forty years. He was being reared in the two distinct cultures of the ways of Egypt and the ways of God, which ended with a crisis of violent conflict and a shameful parting of the ways.

Jesus in the womb of Mary for forty weeks. This was the joining of two different states of being, the human and the divine. It began with the glory of a new creation, and it is to last forever for mankind.

For ourselves this is our upbringing in the particular culture and circumstances of our parents, where in most cases we are sacrificially provided for in body and soul. However, this is not always the way it is and in some cases brings confusion and pain but by God’s grace this can be healed through our understanding of God the Father’s love for us. 

Stage two - Training and testing.
Moses for forty years in the desert as a shepherd being humbled and developed in character by God and under the guiding hand of his father-in-law Jethro. 

Jesus was tested for forty days in the desert where he suffered physically and emotionally and spiritually and overcame the temptations of the devil by listening only to the words of his Father. From that experience Jesus went forth in authority to finally pour out his life for us all.

For us there is the time of ‘making our own way’ in life where we go through the ups and downs and successes and failures, the pain and the joy and the griefs and the sufferings of the lessons of life that develop our character. By the grace of God, we endure, and we learn to lean upon God and to trust him in the yielding of our will to his will for our lives.

Stage three - Empowerment of God with us presence.
For Moses this was the burning bush experience. He learned to recognize what God had put in his hand and in his heart in order for him to be the deliverer of God’s love and wisdom to Israel for forty years in the wilderness.

For Jesus – He was to walk for forty days upon the earth to bear witness to his resurrection and after that to ascend to his Father from where he intercedes for us at all times and in all things. He empowers us by his grace to walk with him hand in hand with what the Father has placed in our hand for his will to be done in our lives. 

How this ‘forty’ narrative example is applied to our lives.
1Corinthians 10:1 For we must never forget, dear brothers, what happened to God’s people through Moses in the wilderness long ago. God guided them by sending a cloud that moved along ahead of them; and he brought them all safely through the waters of the Red Sea. All these things happened to them as examples—as object lessons to us.

God says to us ‘What is that in your hand? 
What he also says to us is that he has given us what is in our hand and what he has put in our hand is what he has also put in our heart. He tells us to take hold of that with a new dimension of faith that he is with us in the doing. He says. ‘My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest. You have found grace in my sight and I know you by name’.

How do we know what is in our hand?
This is not some major penetrating search – we just look around us in our world of those people closest to us and see what it is that God has given us to do to bring his love and care and blessing into their lives - what is the closest situation at hand that is calling for us to give ourselves to right now?
He is also making us mindful of the abilities and skills and experience gained in our work or career, and our roles as a parent or spouse or friend, or as a helper or an adviser. He makes us mindful of the opportunities that have moved us forward and challenged us in our growth of character as a person and that have also been used to fulfill us in our world of influence. All of that has been in your hand to do with as you have willed.

But then comes the burning bush experience for us as it did with Moses. God did something so miraculous that it took his attention from that moment of his normal everyday activity and brought him into an encounter with a supernatural God. Our burning bush is the supernatural fire of the Holy Spirit burning within a mortal human life that draws us into an encounter with the living God - We draw near to God and he draws near to us (James 4:8). God wants to bring to our attention that it is time for God to begin working supernaturally to empower those ordinary things in our life where faith  can now work in us in a new dimension of his grace and love and power.

The following train of thought came to me when meditating on this truth earlier in the week.
When I look around and see what is happening in this pretty ordinary life and see that nothing really special is happening then I remember to look somewhere else where there is a place where God is at work in the world of the unseen, and that is where everything is happening in his world of the Spirit. I then begin to rest in the fact that God is working at something in my world at this moment and that I have the privilege to be part of it. I don't know what it is that he's doing but that doesn’t matter because my faith tells me that it is for good. And by my being connected like that and appreciating what is really happening in that world for me and for those in my world I know that when he does tell me or show me what is happening and what it is that he wants to do with what is in my hand at least I will recognize it and see it by keeping in tune with it in my heart of faith for what he wants to achieve.

Look at your right hand and say to yourself ‘I am walking hand and hand with you Lord into a new future of faith and hope and love and meaning. And the burning bush will stay alight - Forever.