What might happen if we pay attention?

When we think of Moses, we generally remember the man who would turn out to be God’s partner in the liberation of the Hebrew people from slavery in Egypt.

Holy Ground by Lauren Wright Pittman, A Sanctified Art

But have you ever stopped to think how Moses became that man?

While the book of Exodus records Moses’ story beginning at his birth, a turning point comes years later. After murdering an Egyptian, he was forced to flee Egypt to Midian, where he was a shepherd. One day, while tending the flock, Moses noticed a bush burning, but surprisingly, it was not consumed.

The bush couldn’t have been right in front of him, but perhaps over to the side because when Moses saw it, he said, “I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up.”

As Barbara Brown Taylor writes, “The bush required Moses to take a time-out, at least if he wanted to do more than glance at it. He could have done that. He could have seen the flash of red out of the corner of his eye, said, ‘Oh, how pretty,’ and kept right on driving the sheep. He did not know that it was an angel in the bush after all.”

You see, Moses could have decided that he would make sure all the sheep were safe before investigating. Moses could have decided that he would return the next day to see if the bush was still burning. Moses could have decided other tasks were more important than investigating the strange bush.

If he had done so, Moses would have just been the guy who fled Egypt to get away with murder.

What made him Moses God’s partner in the liberation of the Hebrew people, was his willingness to turn aside.

As Barbara Brown Taylor writes, “Wherever else he was supposed to be going and whatever else he was supposed to be doing, he decided it could wait a minute. He parked the sheep and left the narrow path in order to take a closer look at a marvelous sight. When he did, the storyteller says, God noticed. God dismissed the angel and took over the bush. ‘When the Lord saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, ‘Moses, Moses!’’”

The spiritual practice of paying attention isn’t exactly hard, it is simply the practice of noticing. But the practice of paying attention takes time. Most of us, myself included, move so quickly through our days and through life that our surroundings become nothing more than blurred scenery on the way to something else.

But what might happen if we slow down? If we pay attention?

Moses’ story reminds us that we might just encounter God.

Grace and peace,

Kimmy