God of Far Places

Sometimes, we're tempted to think that God doesn't speak to us when we're not where we're supposed to be. If we know that God has called us somewhere, or that God has made a promise in our lives, then we sometimes think that God is done talking to us until we get there, until we make it to the place to which He has called us. 

If you're Israel, then, and you're stuck in Egypt, it's easy to think that there's a massive distance between you and God, too. That God lives somewhere in Canaan and until and unless you can get back there somehow, you'll never hear from Him again. 

Now, imagine that you're Moses, and you aren't even in Egypt. Remember, Moses grew up in the palace of the Egyptian leader, but when he became a man, he ran into some trouble with both Egyptians and Israelites after he thought he did the right thing, and he found himself exiled even from exile! He was out in the fields of a close-but-far-away place with his father-in-law, tending flocks and herds. And he must have been thinking that he, for sure, would never hear from God again. He must have been feeling the tremendous distance between himself and the Lord who is now two places removed from him. 

Enter the burning bush.

This is precisely what I love about God. It doesn't matter how far from home we are, how far away from the promise, how lost in the wilderness, how enslaved in a foreign land...God still comes to us. God comes to talk with us wherever we are, and when He does, He doesn't chastise us for not being in the promise yet; He reminds us of the promise He has for us. He tells us this isn't it. And He shows us that He's making a way to get us there. 

When I'm far from home, far from where God wants me to be, when I can't figure out what's going on or how my life got here, I need this scene from Exodus. I need to know that God is like this. I need to see Him traveling not just to Egypt, but to the place that's even outside of Egypt, to talk to a guy like Moses. 

Because maybe, just maybe, it means that He'll travel to a place like this to talk to a girl like me.