Nougat 15

My siblings

How familiar are you with Moses’ burning Bush encounter? Was there anything that stood out to you in God’s statement to Moses when Moses finally got closer? Consider Today’s Holy Nougat

Exodus 3:5 NIV‬

[5] “Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.”

Take It Off

Despite having read and even reflected on this Nougat before, I am struck this morning by God’s comment. On terrain that is likelier to be rough and rocky, God says that Moses should take his sandals off. Needless to say, it led my mind to a ‘why?’. Why should Moses have to take his sandals off?

Now, I’m well aware that in some cultures, one takes shoes off before entering a house. And some would argue that it’s about hygiene. Perhaps it was. But we also recognize that Moses was outside among the elements. How different were the conditions there than a few feet away? And wasn’t God capable of fixing Moses’ hygiene issues? This is The God Whose Son washed dirty feet. That is no biggie for God.

Aside from the hygiene concern, Jesus’ foot-washing duty offers us another insight on the possible logic behind God’s directive. Peter was mortified that Jesus, the Son of God, the renowned teacher, healer, and prophet was relegated to subservience to His disciples. Jesus simply replied that it was about belonging-ness (see John 13:1-8). It might have been a nod to the psalms that tell only the clean of heart can enter God’s presence. And if we apply both situations to Moses’ Bush moment … Well, put it this way, he should have responded like Peter, not just my shoes, Lord. At the time of their meeting, Moses was wanted for murder.

Yes it is important that we are clean in heart (and feet) before God’s presence. But we recognize that if we’re unclean and God chooses to ‘reason’ with us, God says come as we are (see Isaiah 1:18). So it’s more than the cleanliness factor. What dropped in my spirit as I read this Nougat is that our mind and feet need to be clean in spiritual spaces. But there was more.

I landed on that snippet from Hebrews 12:1, which urges us to ‘lay aside every weight [as in each and every single, solitary one], and the sin which doth easily beset us …’ Moses needed to approach God without the burdens of his past or present. He needed, like you and I also do today, to be unencumbered in God’s presence.

Siblings, we do need to confess our sins to God. No doubt about that. Hence the foot-washing. But more critically, God desires that we approach willingly. Without the burden of past sin, so that we might ‘commune as friend with friend’ (to paraphrase Fanny Crosby).

What weight, what burden from our past prohibits us from entering that Holy space to which God invites us today? I pray that we allow our feet to be washed, as we take our sandals off and bask in the presence of our I AM.

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May all we seek be found in Christ