Burning Bushes Everywhere

There are a lot of ordinary things in the world. I guess that’s what makes ordinary ordinary. The word means commonplace or normal. Like a flower growing in a field. Or a cloud floating up in the sky. Or a lazy summer day. The world is filled with ordinary.

If you’re like me, you probably tend to ignore the ordinary. We drive to work or to the store, and we disregard the beauty that whizzes by our windows. Every day, I drive through my hometown Folsom to get to my church, and unfortunately, Folsom has become a headache of snarled traffic and road construction and long, exasperating traffic lights. Can you relate to that?

There’s this long line of trees along the road that I pass by every day, strong and green and hopeful. They stretch their branches up to the sky, catching rays of sunlight, catching bits of life in every single leaf. Intricate and delicate branches intersect their way down to a sturdy trunk and underground to unseen roots below. In their own way and by their very design, they declare the glory of God. But you see, I don’t see the trees. I don’t see the leaves. I don’t see the beauty. 

All I see are the traffic lights.

So I finally get into the office, and my day has already been upended by my attitude and my anxiety toward the traffic and the busyness. I’m thinking, hurry up and do all of these important tasks for God and the church. But maybe what I should be doing instead, is simply slow down to see glimpses of God’s Kingdom. 

Jesus saw things very differently than us. He saw the lilies in the field, the birds in the air, the budding fig tree, the sheep in the pasture, the little children, the vine and the branches. And in His seeing, He saw Truth.

Jesus said that the Kingdom of Heaven was like treasure hidden in a field, and like a merchant looking for fine pearls, and like a very tiny mustard seed. He warned us of the plank in our own eyes, and the wolves in sheep’s clothing, and the house built on sand. He called us salt and He called us light. You see, he was trying to explain to us the very mysteries of the universe—God’s eternal plan and increasing Kingdom—and he chose the ordinary things to convey them.

There’s a lesson here, I think. I’d like to think that Jesus had an extremely poetic, artistic view of life. After all, the Bible says that the whole of the universe, the whole of creation, was created through him and for him.

John 1:3 says, “Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.”

Colossians 1:16-17 says, “For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him.”

Think about that—the creative muse of the Trinity flowed through the person of Jesus. So by His very nature, he was open to the beauty around Him, even when he was surrounded by poverty and hostility and desert. By the ordinary. Perhaps, if our desire is to be more like him, we need to have eyes that see like Him. Have a mind that’s open to a God revealed in the ordinary.

Do we understand that there’s a type of Truth being declared in a line of trees? That God’s fingerprints are all around us, reminding us of the Greater Reality that is His Kingdom? And that same Truth can be found in a child’s laughter, or a winsome melody, or a formation of geese flying south for the winter. The birds don’t realize that we humans—in the depths of our slumber and in the depths of our souls—we dream of flying. Birds just fly. The trees don’t realize that photosynthesis is an astounding scientific miracle. And a child, in her laughter, doesn’t realize how sacred is her being.

Moses stopped dead in his tracks at the sight of a burning bush afire in a brilliant light. As he approached, God told him to take off his sandals, for the place he was standing was holy ground. What if the world was ablaze with all sorts of burning bushes—ordinary things upon which God presented His glory—and we are simply missing it?

Now, I’m going to say something that might sound almost blasphemous. But it’s not.  I’d like to suggest that maybe your spiritual formation isn’t best served by reading another Christian author or exegeting Scripture. Perhaps instead, we need some eye training. Perhaps we need to grow in our attentiveness to beauty. Or more specifically, our attentiveness to God’s glory.

Maybe you just need to take a hike. And exercise your ability to be in wonder. To be curious. To be in awe.

You see, beauty is transformational. Imagine that we could see the world the way Jesus saw the world. Imagine how your soul might be transformed if you saw every every starlit night sky as a reflection of God’s faithfulness. Or every flower as a reflection of God’s joy. Or every man and woman on the street as a reflection of the image of God, the Imago Dei. What kind of person might you become if you grew in this area?

This Thanksgiving season, I encourage you to consider the Burning Bushes that might be all around you, if you would only have the eyes to see and the ears to hear the small still voice of His glory. For the whole universe is ablaze in glory, and we walk on holy ground.

[Banner photo by Andrea Konigsmann on Unsplash. Inset photo, an afternoon at Jack London State Park.]