Missions Paul

At a burning bush in the wilderness, God introduced himself with a family tree. It would be the moment that we understand that we have a father.

“Then he said, “I am the God of your father,the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.” (Exodus 3 v 6)

When God spoke from the burning bush, he didn’t open with a title or a theological declaration. He opened with a relationship. “I am the God of your father.”

He could have introduced Himself as the Creator or the Eternal One. Instead, God chose the familial name which we all know.

Whether or not you have had a great experience with your earthly father, or not, and he may not have even known God, take this verse into your heart and soul today.

Moses obviously didn’t know these patriarchs who came before the other fathers of Levi (Jacob’s son), Kohath (Levi’s son), Amram (Kohath’s son), before himself, the son of Amram. But these other three walked with God as much as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had. Though all six were flawed in many different ways.

Moses had grown up in Pharaoh’s palace, far from the stories of his people. He knew his heritage but had perhaps wondered whether the God of those stories was his God too. And here, at the burning bush, God answered that unspoken question before Moses even asked it.

Your father knew me. And I know you.

Faith passed down through a family is one of the most powerful gifts a father can give. The knowledge that the God who walked with me will walk with you.

Whether your father walked with God or not, the invitation is here for you today.

God knows your history more than you do and reaches out to you today, inviting you to be the one who walks with Him in this generation.

When you understand this, you know it is a holy-ground moment.

God is here.

Moses was going about his day. It was just another day in the desert with the same animals. Little did he know that things were about to change.

“Take off your sandals,” God said, “for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” (Exodus 3:5)

This wasn’t a special place or sacred building. What made it special wasn’t that bush, which wasn’t burning up. It was the presence of God.

Holiness isn’t in the place. It’s in the One who shows up.

We spend so much time looking for the right moment to encounter God. But Moses was at work, and God met him there.

Are you paying attention today? That is the key question. For this may be ordinary ground, but you may be closer to God than you know. This may require you to take off your sandals.

Holiness is closer than you think.

Some of the most important moments in a life don’t announce themselves. Sometimes they are simply a strange sight on an ordinary day, and a simple decision to take a closer look.

“Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. ² There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. ³ So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.” ⁴ When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!” And Moses said, “Here I am.” (Exodus 3 v 1-4)

Moses wasn’t looking for God that day. He was doing what he did every day. He was tending flocks, covering ground, keeping an eye on the sheep. Just another ordinary morning in the wilderness of Midian.

But something caught his eye.

A bush was burning. That wasn’t unusual in the dry heat of the desert. What was unusual was that it kept burning.

He had no idea where he was standing. Horeb was just a mountain to him. He didn’t know it would one day shake with the voice of God. He didn’t know he would return here, leading a nation, to receive the commandments that would shape human history. All of that was still to come. He was simply a shepherd on an unremarkable morning, noticing something he couldn’t explain.

He doesn’t rationalise. He goes over to look. When he did, God spoke to him.

You may be in a season that feels entirely ordinary. But learn not to pass by the burning bushes. Learn to notice what doesn’t make sense. God has a habit of showing up in strange sights and unexpected places and then waiting to see if we will turn aside.

Moses turned aside. God called his name. That’s how it began for him. It still is.

Midian wasn’t on Moses’ map. Egypt was.

For Moses, we are going to read how, in a foreign place, he married, had a son, and became a shepherd. Yet God was watching all along. Nothing gets slipped past Him. He knows it all.

“Moses agreed to stay with the man, who gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses in marriage. ²² Zipporah gave birth to a son, and Moses named him Gershom,saying, “I have become a foreigner in a foreign land.” ²³ During that long period, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God. ²⁴ God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob. ²⁵ So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them.” (Exodus 2:21-25)

Midian was not where Moses had planned to end up. He was a foreigner in a foreign land. This was a huge detour for him, but God was still there.

The chapters of our lives can be so very different from one another, and yet God manages to be present with us in each one. He doesn’t get lost in the detours of our paths.

Meanwhile, back in Egypt, there was a sound of people who at the end of themselves and are groaning.

And God heard it. He saw Moses, and He heard His people.

God heard, God remembered, God looked, God was concerned.

God had been watching all along.

If you are waiting today for something, waiting for change perhaps, then this is your encouragement. God heard before Moses arrived.

Moses had nowhere else to go. A fugitive on the run, sitting by a well in a foreign place he did not know. He had stopped writing the story of his life. He could not predict at all what would happen next. But what did happen was part of God’s plan. It reminds us that the doors God opens for us are often unlocked by the smallest acts of kindness.

“Now a priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they came to draw water and fill the troughs to water their father’s flock. ¹⁷ Some shepherds came along and drove them away, but Moses got up and came to their rescue and watered their flock. ¹⁸ When the girls returned to Reuel their father, he asked them, “Why have you returned so early today?” ¹⁹ They answered, “An Egyptian rescued us from the shepherds. He even drew water for us and watered the flock.” ²⁰ “And where is he?” Reuel asked his daughters. “Why did you leave him? Invite him to have something to eat.” (Exodus 2 v16-20)

Moses sat down by a well. A fugitive in the desert. He wasn’t doing anything particular. Maybe he was wondering what he would do to rebuild his life after escaping the Pharaoh. Then the incident happened. It had nothing to do with him. There were seven women being chased away from the well by shepherds.

But this was Moses. The Moses who just couldn’t watch an Egyptian beat a Hebrew slave. He got up, intervened and drew the water for the daughters. Thankfully, he still hadn’t learned to look the other way.

This simple act of kindness was the segue into being in the exact place God wanted him to be. Moses must have thought he was hiding from everything and everyone he knew. But by that well that day, he was not hiding from God.

A new chapter was about to begin for Moses and God was there watching his every move.

This section is not the story of a bad man but a good man moving too soon. A lesson for us all not to move in our own strength.

“One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his own people were and watched them at their hard labour. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people. ¹² Looking this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. ¹³ The next day he went out and saw two Hebrews fighting. He asked the one in the wrong, “Why are you hitting your fellow Hebrew?”  ¹⁴ The man said, “Who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses was afraid and thought, “What I did must have become known.” ¹⁵ When Pharaoh heard of this, he tried to kill Moses, but Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in Midian, where he sat down by a well.” (Exodus 2 v 11-15)

Are you a person who stands with the oppressed, who cannot ignore suffering and who cannot simply turn a blind eye? Moses was that person. God would use all of that pent-up emotion one day. But for now, his timing and method were wrong.

He tried to cover up what he had done. He had to. He had hoped no one would have known, after all, there wasn’t anyone who had seen him killing the Egyptian. Well, no one except the Israelite whom he had saved.

The man he defended became his accuser. Ever known that?

So he ran, and God let him. God let him run to the desert, where the next part of his life will commence. This is a relocation for Moses, not a disqualification. He begins a refining process in the desert. One impulsive moment in Egypt needed forty years in the wilderness to teach that God’s work has to be done God’s way.

What feels like exile is often just formation. God had Moses where he wanted him, in the desert. He would emerge from there, but not for now.

He didn’t choose his name, nor the river, nor indeed the princess who found him. However, every detail had been arranged for his survival.

¹⁰ When the child grew older, she took him to Pharaoh’s daughter and he became her son. She named him Moses,saying, “I drew him out of the water.” (Exodus 2 v 10)

The adult Moses would one day stand at another body of water (the Red Sea) and watch as God drew an entire nation out of their slavery in Egypt.

But for now, without him knowing, he is drawn out of the water by a princess who, in trying to explain what happened at the river, names him Moses. None of us has any say in where we are born or what we are called; our choices come later. Yet there will be times throughout life, as it was for Moses, that it feels like you are back in that basket, helpless and carried by currents you never chose. But you worship God, who is a miraculous arranger. He will draw you out, hold on.

He ordered the steps of a princess’s walk along the Nile that day, and He can order yours too.

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There are times in life when circumstances force us to let go of what we cherish most. Today, we will see that there are also times when there is a blessing in the return of that.

“Then his sister asked Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?” ⁸ “Yes, go,” she answered. So the girl went and got the baby’s mother. ⁹ Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this baby and nurse him for me, and I will pay you.” So the woman took the baby and nursed him.” (Exodus 2 v 7-9)

This account shows us what can happen when we place what is most precious to us into God’s hands. Faced with an impossible situation, Moses’ mother entrusted her baby to God’s care, placing him in a basket on the Nile and believing that God would do what she could not. Yet this passage illustrates a profound spiritual truth: when we entrust things to God, they often come back to us in ways we never expected.

There are moments in life when we must release things into God’s hands. This story reveals that surrender is not the end. Often, it is the place where God’s faithfulness begins to unfold in ways we could not have imagined.

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There are moments in the Bible story when split-second decisions change the course of history. Here is one of those moments between a Hebrew baby and an Egyptian Royal daughter.

“Then Pharaoh’s daughter went down to the Nile to bathe, and her attendants were walking along the riverbank. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her female slave to get it. ⁶ She opened it and saw the baby. He was crying, and she felt sorry for him. “This is one of the Hebrew babies,” she said.” (Exodus 2:5-6)

You may be the daughter of the Pharaoh. You, above everyone, may know the rules. What should have happened was that you would call the guards and arrange for your father’s evil law to be enforced. It wasn’t that she didn’t know. Everyone knew the command.

Look what happened. She opens the basket. She sees the baby. She identifies it as a Hebrew baby. But something happened. “… she felt sorry for him.” Compassion wins in that moment. The cry of the helpless child stirred her heart in a way that all the prejudice and the politics and maybe even fear could not

God didn’t need to topple the empire from the outside. He was already on the inside. God is everywhere. He planted His purpose in the heart of the house of the enemy of His people. The purpose was for mercy to become more important than indifference.  Now, if God can turn the heart of Pharaoh’s own daughter, no heart is beyond His reach. No system is too hostile for His purposes to break through.

This wasn’t just the rescue of one child; it was the start of God intervening, and He did so through the pity of an unlikely person.

God doesn’t wait outside of a terrible circumstance; He is right there in the middle of it, turning hearts, planting purpose and pouring mercy into the situation.

If He could do that in Pharaoh’s house, He can do it in yours.

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The opening verses of Exodus 2 tell a story of courage, love, and faith under impossible circumstances. After the courage of Shiphrah and Puah (the midwives), who defied Pharaoh’s command at great personal risk, we now meet a family who must live with the consequences of that same edict.

“Now a man of the tribe of Levi married a Levite woman, ² and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. When she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him for three months. ³ But when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile. ⁴ His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him.” (Exodus 2 v 1-4)

A Levite woman gives birth to a son at a time when Hebrew baby boys are under threat. For three months, she has hidden him; can you imagine this?

Eventually, she can no longer keep him hidden.

There are times when we have to release what we treasure the most and trust God with the outcome. This was one of those times for Moses’ mother.

Maybe you have done all you can, and it was never going to be enough to control the outcome. Like this mother, you now find yourself placing your hope into an uncertain future. You might not know what tomorrow brings, but you serve one who does.

Interestingly, the Hebrew word for ‘basket’ here is the same as the one used for Noah’s ark. Jochebed (his mother) did all she could to prepare the basket for him, just as Noah had done in preparing the ark. She coated it with tar and pitch. That’s what she could do. What she couldn’t do was in the hands of God.

The sister of Moses (Miriam) was too young to do anything to help, but she is positioned for what lies ahead.

Where are you in this story?

You might be Jochebed, doing everything within your power, but you know you are now in God’s hands.

You might be Miriam, feeling too powerless to do anything meaningful, yet positioned by God for a role you can’t yet see.

You might be the baby, carried along by currents you can’t control, unaware of what is going to play out in the story God is writing for your life.

One thing is true: God is already downstream, writing the next part of your story.