When
the LORD saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of
the bush and said, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here am I.”
“…Therefore,
come now, and I will send you to Pharaoh, so that you may bring My people out
of Egypt.”
Exodus
3:4,10
But
for you who fear My name, the Sun of righteousness shall arise with healing in
His wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall.
Malachi
4:2
Sometimes
a light surprises the Christian while he sings;
It
is the Lord, who rises with healing in His wings:
When
comforts are declining, He grants the soul again
A
season of clear shining, to cheer it after rain.
Though
the vine nor fig tree neither their wonted fruit should bear,
Though
all the field should wither, nor flocks nor herds be there;
Yet
God the same abiding, His praise shall tune my voice,
For
while in Him confiding, I cannot but rejoice.
WILLIAM
COWPER
Sometimes a Light Surprises
There
are days in all lives which come unannounced, unheralded; no angel faces look
out of heaven; no angel voices put us on our guard: but as we look back on them
in after years, we realize that they were the turning points of existence.
Perhaps we look longingly back on the uneventful routine of the life that lies
beyond them; but the angel, with drawn sword, forbids our return, and compels
us forward. It is so with Moses.
Quite ordinary was that
morning as it broke. The sun rose as usual in a dull haze over the expanse of
sand, or above the gaunt forms of the mountains, seamed and scarred. As the young day opened, it began to
shine in a cloudless sky casting long shadows over the plains; and presently,
climbing to the zenith, threw a searching, scorching light into every aperture
of the landscape beneath. The
sheep browsed as usual on the scant herbage, or lay panting beneath the shadow
of a great rock; but there was nothing in their behavior to excite the thought
that God was nigh. The giant forms
of the mountains, the spreading heavens, the awful silence unbroken by song of
bird or hum of insect life, the acacia bushes drooping in the shadeless glare ~these
things were as they had been for forty years, and as they threatened to be
after Moses had sunk into an obscure and forgotten grave. Then, all suddenly, a common bush began
to shine with the emblem of Deity; and from its heart of fire the voice of God
broke the silence of the ages in words that fell on the shepherd’s ear like a
double-knock: “Moses, Moses.”
And from that moment all
his life was altered….
That voice still speaks to those whose hearts are
hushed to hear…By written letter or printed page, by the beauty of a holy life,
the spell of some precious memory, or the voice of some living teacher, the God
of past generations still makes known His will to the anointed ear. Nor will our lives ever be what they
might until we realize that God has a plan for every hour in them; and that He
waits to reveal that plan to the loving and obedient heart, making it known to
us by one of the ten thousand ministries that lie around us. Insensibly to ourselves we contract the
habit of thinking of Him as the God of the dead, who spoke to the fathers in
oracle and prophet; whereas the I AM is the God of the living ~passing through
our crowded thoroughfares, brooding over our desert spaces, and seeking hearts
which are still enough from their own plannings and activities to listen.
The main point for each
of us is to be able to answer His summons with the response, “Here am I.” It may seem long to wait, and the
oft-expected day so slow in coming that the heart sinks down, oppressed with
the crowd of common days, and relinquishes hope; but your opportunity will come
at last. Be always ready! ...In
such an hour as you think not the Lord will come. What rapture to be able to
answer His appeal with, “Here am I.”
Moses
F. B. Meyer
If
you are willing to choose the seeming darkness of faith instead of the
illumination of reason, wonderful light will break out upon you from the Word
of God.
A.J. GORDON
