Hearing in the Silence

If someone had asked Moses before the burning bush episode if God had ever spoken to him, he would have surely said, "No!"   It is not the kind of thing most people claim.  Actually, it not the kind of thing most people believe is possible.  If we should say that we have heard God speaking to us, we would discover that folks start raising their eyebrows and easing out of the conversation.  Even among believers it is not something which is regarded as normal and healthy.  The burning bush story is an intriguing story.    

When it unfolded Moses was a fugitive with a wanted poster hanging in the post office back in Egypt.  After killing the Egyptian who was beating a Hebrew, Moses fled to the wilderness where he became a part of a shepherd family, married, and settled into routine family life. It does not seem likely that Moses was looking for God, or expecting to hear His voice when he found himself out in the region around Horeb, which was know as the mountain of God.  (Exodus 3:1)   But, he did.  He encountered an angel and then heard the voice of God calling out to him, saying, "Moses, Moses."  (Exodus 3:4)     

As we make an effort to unwrap the story, it is obvious that Moses was spending a lot of time with himself.  A shepherd has time to spend with himself.  And out there in the wilderness tending sheep, life had no doubt become something that was simplified.  He surely was more in touch with himself and the creation than he was when he was caught up in the Egyptian culture.   The burning bush moment did not come on the first day in the wilderness, but only after its silence and solitude had time to take hold of his life.  We should expect to hear the voice of God in our own circumstances, but it may take some changes in the way we live before we find that are ears are becoming tuned into the Voice of the Invisible but Ever Present One.