Monday, June 2, 2025
Scripture Readings
- Primary Reading: Exodus 3-4
Key Verse
Exodus 4:5 — “That they may believe that the LORD God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath appeared unto thee.”
Devotional Thought
Moses was eighty years old, keeping another man’s sheep on the far side of the desert, when he noticed a bush that burned and would not burn up. He could have walked past it. Shepherds see strange things in the wilderness—heat shimmer, thorn fires, dust devils—and a man with a flock and a failed past might easily have kept moving. But Moses said, “I will now turn aside, and see this great sight.” And it was precisely when the LORD saw that he turned aside that God called to him out of the bush: “Moses, Moses.” The call came not to a hero in his prime but to an exile tending his father-in-law’s flock, and it came with a command to take off his shoes, for the ground itself had become holy because God was standing on it.
What God speaks next is one of the tenderest sentences in all Scripture: “I have surely seen the affliction of my people… and have heard their cry… for I know their sorrows.” Four hundred years of slavery in Egypt, and heaven had not been indifferent. God had seen, heard, and known—and now He says, “I am come down to deliver them.” Yet the astonishing thing is how He chooses to do it: “Come now therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh.” The deliverance of a nation would run through the reluctant hands of a shepherd with a staff.
Moses protests, and his protests are the protests of every honest soul. Who am I? What is Your name? What if they will not believe me? I am not eloquent. Send someone else. To each objection God answers not with a program but with Himself: “Certainly I will be with thee.” “I AM THAT I AM.” “What is that in thine hand?” The rod in Moses’ hand—the ordinary tool of his daily work—became the instrument of signs and wonders. And when Moses finally ran out of excuses, God’s anger kindled, yet even that anger was wrapped in mercy: Aaron his brother was already on the way to meet him.
On an early June morning, with the year half-turned and the long green days ahead, most of us are not standing before Pharaoh. We are keeping our own flocks—tending a household, a job, a small and unremarkable patch of ground. But the God of Horeb still sees, still hears, still knows our sorrows, and still calls people who feel unqualified. He does not ask for eloquence or courage. He asks that we turn aside, take off our shoes, and answer, “Here am I.”
Reflection
- What burning bush has God placed in your path that you have been tempted to walk past—and what would it mean for you to “turn aside” and look?
- Moses kept offering God his inadequacy; what “rod” is already in your hand that God might be asking you to cast down and use?
Prayer
O God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, You are the great I AM, the One who sees affliction, hears cries, and knows sorrows. We confess that we are often like Moses—slow of speech, full of objections, quick to say “send someone else.” Forgive our hesitance. Turn our eyes aside this day to behold Your holiness in the ordinary places where we stand. Take what is in our hands and make it Yours. Be with our mouths, teach us what to say, and let us walk in the peace of Your presence, until every knee bows and every heart worships the God who came down to deliver. In the name of Jesus, Amen.