Read

Exodus 3:1-3 "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. 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. So Moses thought, 'I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.'"

Think

Forty years of the same routine. That is what Moses' life looked like on the back side of the Midian desert. Get up. Walk the sheep to water. Move them to fresh grass. Protect them from predators. Bring them home. Do it again tomorrow. No headlines. No palace intrigue. No national cause to rally behind. Just sand, sheep, and silence. For forty years.

I want to be careful here, because it is easy to romanticize the desert when you are not the one living in it. Nobody writes a worship song about boredom. Nobody puts "tending sheep in the middle of nowhere" on a vision board. Nobody looks at forty years of routine and calls it exciting. But that is exactly where Moses was when God showed up. Not in a cathedral. Not at a leadership conference. On the commute.

I can relate to that. Years ago, I was at Florida State on a basketball scholarship. One afternoon I was at practice, just dribbling the ball, standing on the free throw line, shooting around under the glass goal. Nothing special about the moment. No music playing. No dramatic lighting. And right there, in the middle of that ordinary gym on that ordinary afternoon, God called me into ministry. There was no audible voice, no burning bush, no earthquake. Just a deep, settled clarity in my chest that I could not shake. I knew. I did not want to know, but I knew.

That gym was my back side of the wilderness. The free throw line was my far side of the desert. And the voice that interrupted my dribbling was as real and unexpected as the fire that interrupted Moses' afternoon. Nobody in that gym knew what had just happened. There was no audience for the most important moment of my life. Just me, a basketball, and God breaking through the ordinary.

I think that is how God works more often than we realize. We keep waiting for the spectacular, and he keeps showing up in the ordinary. We are looking for the burning bush, and he is speaking through the basketball practice, the morning commute, the quiet moment after the kids go to bed.

Look at how the text describes it. Moses was tending the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law. He led them to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. He was not on a spiritual retreat. He was doing his job. And then the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. The bush was burning, but it was not consumed.

I love how the text captures what happens next. Moses did not fall on his face immediately. He did not hear a voice yet. He simply noticed something strange and made a choice: "I will go over and see this strange sight." That decision to turn aside, to pay attention, to stop and look more closely, is what opened the door to everything that followed.

Here is the deal. God had been there the whole time. The bush was already burning before Moses noticed it. The question was not whether God would speak. The question was whether Moses would stop long enough to hear.

I talk to people all the time who tell me they are waiting on God. They want direction. They want clarity. They want the next big thing. And often, what I want to ask them is: have you stopped moving long enough to notice what God is already doing right in front of you?

Because that is the pattern of this passage. God did not send Moses an invitation. He did not pull Moses out of his routine and put him in a special location. He showed up in the middle of the routine and waited for Moses to turn aside. And when Moses did turn, when he took those few steps toward the fire, everything changed. Not because Moses was special. Because he was willing to stop.

Those forty years of sand, sheep, and silence were not filler. Every boring day tending someone else's flock taught Moses something he would need when he was leading two million people through the wilderness. Patience. Endurance. How to find water in dry places. How to keep going when nothing exciting is happening. The desert curriculum does not look impressive on paper, but it produces something that no classroom can replicate.

When God called me at that basketball practice, I was not expecting it. I was not praying for it. I was just shooting free throws. But looking back, I can see that God had been working in the ordinary moments of my life for years before that afternoon. Every conversation with my dad about ministry. Every time I watched him preach from the front row. Every late-night question about what my life was supposed to be about. God was burning the whole time. I just had not turned aside to look.

If you are in a season of sand, sheep, and silence right now, do not assume God has forgotten you. He might be burning right next to you, waiting for you to turn your head and notice.

Apply

Turn aside today – Set aside fifteen minutes of silence. No phone, no music, no agenda. Ask God to show you what he is already doing in your ordinary routine that you might be walking past.

Pray

Lord, forgive me for looking for you in the spectacular and walking past you in the ordinary. Open my eyes to the ways you are already at work in my daily routine. Give me the discipline to stop, to turn aside, and to pay attention. I do not want to miss what you are doing right in front of me. In Jesus' name. Amen.