Not visiting. Living. Herding sheep. Watching the same hills every day.
Moses had stopped expecting anything to happen.
Then something in the corner of his eye caught him.
A fire. Small. On the side of the mountain.
He almost didn't stop. Fires happened in the desert.
But this one wasn't going out.
He watched it. One minute. Two. The bush was burning but nothing was being consumed. No ash. No smoke thickening. The branches were still there.
He said to himself: I will turn aside and see this.
That phrase. I will turn aside.
He made a choice. He walked toward the strange thing instead of away from it.
And then God spoke.
Not before he turned. After.
God saw that he turned aside to see, and called to him from the middle of the fire.
He said: Moses. Moses.
And Moses said: Here I am.
Two words. And forty years of quiet ended.
God told him to take off his sandals because the ground was holy.
Moses hid his face. He was afraid to look.
But he had already looked long enough.
He had turned aside.
That was the only qualification required.
Not perfection. Not preparation.
Just willingness to stop and look at a strange thing.
Scripture — Exodus 3:2
"And the angel of the LORD appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed."
Reflection
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The burning bush was always there. The question was whether Moses would turn aside to see it.
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God calls from the middle of things that should be destroyed but aren't. That is where He meets people.