Day 3 with Moses: The extraordinary often appears in the ordinary.

“Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian. And he led the flock to the back of the desert, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. And the Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of a bush. So he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, but the bush was not consumed. Then Moses said, “I will now turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush does not burn.””

‭‭Exodus‬ ‭3:1-3‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

Let’s face it, a lot of people want to see some awesome supernatural occurrence. Even in the church we often see people drawn by signs and wonders. Certainly, signs and wonders are meant to confirm the word of God. But it is not good when people get caught up on the notion of having to see something extraordinary in order to believe what God has said. As a matter of fact, people who are always seeking after the extraordinary, often miss the truly extraordinary often occurring in the midst of the ordinary. Additionally, if we miss the signs already all around us, we will certainly miss the miraculous.

“But He replied to them, “When it is evening, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red.’ And in the morning, ‘It will be stormy today, for the sky is red and has a threatening look.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but cannot interpret the signs of the times? An evil and [morally] unfaithful generation craves a [miraculous] sign; but no sign will be given to it, except the sign of [the prophet] Jonah.” Then He left them and went away.”

‭‭Matthew‬ ‭16:2-4‬ ‭AMP‬‬

In the above incident Jesus is not speaking against signs per se, He is saying that they (the religious leaders) already had signs all around them—specifically concerning his validity as the Messiah—which they were ignoring. So—given that they were ignoring those signs—He said that they would receive no other sign except that of Jonah (see Matthew 12:40 for clarification).

When we left Moses yesterday he had married the daughter of Jethro and had a son with her (he subsequently had another son with her). Today we find him 40 years later (see Acts 7:30), doing what he had been doing for those 40 years: tending the flocks of Jethro.

On this day Moses is tending the flock near the Mountain of God, Mount Horeb (a.k.a. Mount Sinai). He notices that a bush is burning. Now, a bush burning in the desert would not have been an unusual site given the dryness of the area and the common occurrence of lightening in dry thunderstorms (the desert air is so dry that the precipitation evaporates before hitting the ground). What was extraordinary on this day was that this particular bush did not burn up. This gets Moses attention and he turns aside to see what would happen next. Little did Moses know that his world was about to be rocked!

It’s not wrong to enjoy the signs and wonders our precious Lord so often affords us. But we must not make the mistake of missing the truly extraordinary He often dispenses in what could have been seen as a common occurrence in just another day.

For today let us discover what Moses discovered:

The extraordinary often appears in the ordinary.

#40dayswithmoses