Burning Bushes

Advent tells us to look for God stirring about.  The Genesis story of Eden tells us that the Garden couple expected God to be revealing Himself regularly in their ordinary lives.  They learned to expect Him.  They anticipated His evening walks in the Garden which is why they were in hiding on the day they paid attention to what the serpent was telling them to do. What we never really need is someone else to tell us we messed up.  They knew and we know, too.   

When we hold the ancient story in one hand and the Advent message in the other, we come to a place of knowing that God is still out there.  It may seem to us that He is in hiding, but the truth is that we do not always want this Invisible One to become the Visible One.  Advent says to forget such wishful thinking.  He is going to be revealing Himself to us.  He is going to come to us as surely as He came walking in the Garden and as surely as He showed up as a helpless baby in the arms of Mary.  He is not only out there on the edge of revealing Himself to us, but we should be living with the expectation that such a revelation is about to happen.    

Our expectations shape our living.  If we expect God to reveal Himself to us in the ordinary moments of our day, we will live those days with eyes opened to look for Him.  We will live them differently.  One of the lessons learned here at the farm in these years of being immersed in the creation is that "Earth's crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire with God."  (Elizabeth Barrett Browning)  When I first came here thirteen years ago, I never expected to see a burning bush and now it seems that they are all burning!