When God speaks....

When the Lord saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” Ex 3:4

When Moses encounters the burning bush, his life is a mess. He's running from the Egyptians, the Hebrews don't trust him, he's living in a strange land and just married some sheep herder's daughter.

We can all empathize with Moses at this point. He may well have been praying and asking God for some answers as to why all this happened to him. Moses may have said to himself, as we all have at some point in time, "If only God would tell me what's going on! Then I'd be OK!"

Well, God does exactly that. He shows up and begins speaking to Moses. Here's the catch; everything Moses hears is exactly the opposite of what he wants to hear. Everything God says is the vary last thing Moses wants to do.

The real lesson of the life of Moses is not the great achievements he accomplished. It is that he went forward, doing what he feared most, in obedience to God's will and plan for his life. He had an authentic encounter with God. God spoke openly and clearly to Him, just as He does to us in His Word, and Moses responded by obeying Him.

All this happened in spite of the fact that Moses in all likelihood, would have preferred to hear something entirely different, probably along the lines of, "It's not your fault. They are bad people and I will smite them for you." Instead, he did what God told him to do. He went back to Egypt , walked directly into the most dangerous place on earth for him and spoke God's Word boldly and with confidence, placing his own welfare and fate in the hands of His Father in heaven.

So many folks want to say something like, "If only I knew what God was thinking!" or, "If only He would make things clear to me!" Be careful! We know God will respond. He promised He would. We should always ask ourselves if we're really ready to hear what He has to say.