The burning bush. How often have I said (and heard others say) "I wish God would speak to me like He did to Moses, through a burning bush. If God just spoke to me as clearly as Hid did to Moses, then I would know what He wanted me to do and my life would be easier than it is." Why doesn't God speak to us like He did to Moses?
Let me ask you another question: What makes you think God isn't speaking to you like He did to Moses? Sure, we may not see any burning bushes with voices coming out of them, but God does speak to us, oftentimes very clearly. The problem isn't that God doesn't speak to us like He spoke to Moses, the problem is that we don't listen to Him.
Let's go back to Moses and the burning bush and look at what's going on here. The passage starts out like this: "As he looked on, he was surprised to see that the bush, though on fire, was not consumed. So Moses decided, 'I must go over to look at this remarkable sight, and see why the bush had not burned.'" (Exodus 3:2-3) Moses saw a bush that was on fire. This, in itself, is nothing spectacular, except that it was not being consumed. He could have dismissed it as nothing. But Moses felt a tug on his heart. He felt drawn to it. Moses, being a man of God, recognized this tug as a call to prayer and he responded. It was only after Moses responded to the initial tug on his heart to investigate the bush that he heard God calling out to him. Moses then entered into prayer and conversed with God. He then heard God's call to free the Israelites from Egypt.
We all get these tugs on our hearts from God, whether we recognize it or not. These tugs are a call to prayer, a call to enter a relationship with God.We may not literally see burning bushes as we're walking down the street or driving down a busy highway, but there are tugs on our hearts. I recognize these tugs on my heart many times. It may be something as small as writing for my blog or stopping what I'm doing to play with my kids or it may be as big as changing my career path. The tugs are there and we need to be able to recognize them.
So, how do you recognize the tugs of God on your hearts? There is only one way to recognize them, and that is through prayer. Start praying now, even if you don't feel the tug on your heart or see the burning bush in your life. I said earlier that Moses was a man of God before he saw the burning bush. He had a prayer life and a relationship with the Lord. We need that, too. If we can pray now when we don't see our burning bushes, then with time we will be able to see them as they come up in our lives. And when we do begin to see the burning bushes in our lives, when we do begin to feel the tugs on our hearts, we need to respond as Moses did. It is then that we will hear the voice of God calling to us loud and clear.