Exodus 3

Take it Off

Posted on by Betsy

A recent Sunday at my church was a day filled with lots of children’s events, thus bringing out lots of children. As I waited by the back door, three kids ran past me to get to the sanctuary. They were from different families, and all three were shoeless.

I have adjusted to acolytes in flip flops, a common sight in my church but not common elsewhere. I love our laid back Outer Banks style. I love comfortable footwear on 10 year olds carrying the candlelighter with the seriousness of a welder powering up his flame. I especially love happy, shoeless kids running through the sanctuary to take their seat and wait for the fun to begin. I was two seconds away from taking off my own heeled pumps when I had a last minute “maybe-that’s-not-appropriate” thought flash through my mind.

Or is it?

I think the shoeless kids feel some kind of connection to the idea of “special, set apart and sacred” and want to have full physical contact with that holy ground that is the sanctuary. The joy of running on the old, worn, red carpet in a place that feels homey and safe is a delight to behold. Maybe we should all take off our shoes! Moses did:

Exodus 3 (Contemporary English Version)

God Speaks to Moses

3 One day, Moses was taking care of the sheep and goats of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian, and Moses decided to lead them across the desert to Sinai,[a] the holy mountain. 2 There an angel of the Lord appeared to him from a burning bush. Moses saw that the bush was on fire, but it was not burning up. 3 “This is strange!” he said to himself. “I’ll go over and see why the bush isn’t burning up.”

4 When the Lord saw Moses coming near the bush, he called him by name, and Moses answered, “Here I am.”

5 God replied, “Don’t come any closer. Take off your sandals—the ground where you are standing is holy. 6 I am the God who was worshiped by your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”

Moses was afraid to look at God, and so he hid his face.

Why the command to take off his shoes? Perhaps it was a way to warm Moses up for the BIG ASK that God was about to deliver. God would tell Moses that he was to go from that place at Mt. Sinai to confront Pharaoh and demand he set his people free from slavery in Egypt. Taking off his shoes was a reminder to Moses that God’s presence had made this place holy ground. Middle eastern tradition required the removal of one’s shoes before entering houses and temples, and so God was asking Moses to humble himself before both God and his plan. The shoes that bore the contaminants and dirt of the non-sacred places were to be set aside so that God could deal with him in a pure and vulnerable state.

This is what the children innately understand. Their purity and vulnerability are a sign to the big folks that we should emotionally and spiritually take off our shoes and garments and stand soul-naked each time we enter God’s presence. All of the fakery, the conceit, the embellishments, and the hypocrisy need to fall away before God can be encountered. When we submit to this stripping down of our facades, God can finally reveal his presence and plan to us.

What do you need to “take off” so that God can reveal your next step to you? What accessories are you hiding behind that block you from entering into God’s presence fully and humbly? Are there conceits that have you so conceited that the humble, holy ground has no appeal to you? Are you trotting around in shoes covered with the contaminants and dirt of the non-sacred places you frequent? Lay it down. Let it go. Take off your shoes and get over yourself.

God calls us to his Holy Ground today. Let us run barefoot into his presence and be ready to receive whatever he has planned for us.

Mykonos Holy Ground-A private family chapel.

Pay Attention

Posted on by Betsy

Being around young children can be exhausting for a number of reasons. Their energy, their craziness, the noise, your worry over their safety…it can wear you flat OUT. One of the main reasons that kids are exhausting is that they want you to watch everything they are doing every minute of your wakefulness. Who has not spent an afternoon “relaxing” at the pool with children only to realize you’ve read the same paragraph of your beach novel eighteen times because they kept yelling for you to look up and watch them?

This, my friends, is why God created nap/quiet time on the eighth day.

Moses’ call to action came about in the same manner. Here he was, minding his own business and his father-in-law’s sheep, and suddenly God demanded his full attention. “MOSES. MOSES. MOSES. LOOK OVER HERE. WATCH THIS, MOSES! WATCH ME DO THIS TRICK. ARE YOU WATCHING? MOSES? MOSES?”

Instead of the tenth cannonball into the pool, God sent Moses a much more subtle sign…a burning bush.

Exodus 3 (Common English Bible)

3 Moses was taking care of the flock for his father-in-law Jethro, Midian’s priest. He led his flock out to the edge of the desert, and he came to God’s mountain called Horeb. 2 The Lord’s messenger appeared to him in a flame of fire in the middle of a bush. Moses saw that the bush was in flames, but it didn’t burn up. 3 Then Moses said to himself, Let me check out this amazing sight and find out why the bush isn’t burning up.

I have to wonder what God had been doing prior to the burning bush to get Moses’ attention. Did he tap Moses’ shoulder? Clear his throat? Create a great wind in the desert? Yet somehow Moses was unaware of God’s presence right up until the bush burst into flames but didn’t burn up.

Where is God trying to get your attention? We know with great certainty that God was present with Moses before this moment. God had protected Moses from infanticide by hiding him in plain sight with Pharaoh’s daughter. God saved him again when Pharaoh tried to kill him and then helped him safely escape to the place where he found his wife and security. God was always with Moses. Yet somehow in this particular moment Moses was preoccupied to the point that it took a burning bush to get his attention.

4 When the Lord saw that he was coming to look, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!”

Moses said, “I’m here.”

This begs the question of our own preoccupation as well. Is God trying to call you into action and you are simply not seeing the signs? Are you looking the other way due to your reluctance to respond to what he might ask you to do?

5 Then the Lord said, “Don’t come any closer! Take off your sandals, because you are standing on holy ground.” 6 He continued, “I am the God of your father, Abraham’s God, Isaac’s God, and Jacob’s God.” Moses hid his face because he was afraid to look at God.

Are you hiding YOUR face because you’re afraid to see where God may be sending you?

7 Then the Lord said, “I’ve clearly seen my people oppressed in Egypt. I’ve heard their cry of injustice because of their slave masters. I know about their pain. 8 I’ve come down to rescue them from the Egyptians in order to take them out of that land and bring them to a good and broad land, a land that’s full of milk and honey, a place where the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites all live. 9 Now the Israelites’ cries of injustice have reached me. I’ve seen just how much the Egyptians have oppressed them.10 So get going. I’m sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.

Moses did not want this job. He did everything he could to get out of it but in the end Moses was the one to bring the Hebrew people safely out of slavery in Egypt.

As you consider where God might be calling you to action, remember Moses. Don’t make God send you a burning bush. Lay aside your objections and say yes. You just might be the one that God is using to deliver somebody from oppression and injustice today.

Maybe it’s you he’s trying to save.

Pay attention!

Where God Leads You by Teresa Silverman