Seeking God: Lord, I am here. Speak to me.

Moses lifted his eyes and saw the flames in the distance.

Something was burning on the side of the mountain – something unlike anything he had ever seen. He watched it – at first with curiosity, but then with wonder. It was a consuming fire. Yet the bush that contained the flame was not destroyed. For years, he had shepherded his father-in-law’s flocks and on occasion noticed fires burning in the distance, but this one was different.

It was more than a campfire of a neighboring shepherd. This fire burned with intensity and contained no hint of going out. Moses stood and watched this sight. Maybe he continued to move the flock from one place to another, noting that the fire was just as powerful in the evening as it had been in the first part of the day. Finally, he could wait no longer. He said,

I must turn aside now and see this marvelous sight, [and discover] why the bush is not burned up. – Exodus 3:3

God has a divine purpose resting behind events in life.

Nothing is coincidental. The bush burned because He wanted to gain Moses’ attention. He wanted Him to draw near. Sometimes His purpose for our lives is very clear. Sometimes it is not. It can appear to be very mysterious, but it never is to God. We may find ourselves asking, “God, what are You doing?”

Certainly, Moses was in wonder over the sight of the burning bush. And more than likely, he wanted to know why it was not consumed.

Have you ever wondered why God allows certain challenges, events, and trials to take place?

Most of us have. We encounter a serious problem and immediately are tempted to feel hopeless.

Other times, when we sense a change we may actually welcome it. We find ourselves longing to have His wisdom, but how do we gain this? There is only one place, and that is in the company of God.

God drew Moses to Himself. He knew exactly how His future deliverer would respond, and He knows how we will respond when He calls to us.

When the LORD saw that [Moses] turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, ‘Moses, Moses!’ And he said, ‘Here I am’. – Exodus 3:4

Forty years of living in a vast wilderness changed Moses. God had used the experience to prepare him for service. There probably was a time when he would not have noticed the flame that burned on the side of God’s holy mountain. But this was no longer the case. God was drawing him close to Himself.

How does He draw you and me close to Himself? Often it is in the same way, but the circumstances are different.

He may allow us to experience a challenge that is much greater than our ability to handle it. Moses spent forty years in a wilderness without the comforts that he once knew in Egypt. But each day was a day that God used to shape his life and prepare him for what he would do in the future. Each step he took was a step closer to becoming the man God created him to be.

He may set up a scenario to gain our attention. Moses saw a bush that was in full blaze, yet it was not destroyed. It definitely caught his eye, and he wondered how this could be happening.

You may find yourself in a situation that is nothing like the one Moses saw unfold before him. It could be something as simple as standing in line at the grocery store and suddenly becoming aware of God’s awesome love. Or you may be at home reading your morning devotional and suddenly you know God wants to speak to you about an incident or challenge that you have encountered. How do you know this? The words written on the page of your devotional book or Bible almost leap off. It is as if they are underlined and you are stopped by what you have read.

Regardless of how God draws us near, our response should be this:

Lord, I am here; speak to me and show me what You want to teach me.

He may just want you to worship Him for a few minutes as you step away from the hurried pace of our world.

Or He may want you to draw even closer through the study of His Word. This is where we uncover the deeper things of God – His nature, characteristics, and way. You cannot truly know God until you take time to read and study the Bible. Every question you have is answered within its pages. There is nothing you can think of that God has not thought of before you and fully explained in the text of His Word.

God loves you so much that He wants you to have His very best, but you cannot experience this outside of knowing Him. When you spend time studying His Word, you begin to realize that you are gaining the knowledge you need for a lifetime of devotion to Him. He also provides the wisdom you need for every circumstance of life. He withholds nothing.

For the LORD God is a sun and shield; the LORD gives grace and glory; no good thing does He withhold from those who walk uprightly. – Psalm 84:11

But you cannot discover God’s will for your life or for the situation that you are in apart from spending time with Him.

This includes studying His Word with a notepad and an open heart.

I Want to Know You, Lord

When Moses stepped into God’s presence for the first time, an intimate relationship began to form between him and the Lord. At the burning bush in Exodus 3, we read that Moses “hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God” (v. 6). However, by Exodus 33, there is an entirely different account of their meetings. Verse 11 states, “The LORD used to speak to Moses face to face, just as a man speaks to his friend.” Moses drew near to God and became so involved with Him that he wanted to learn His ways. And this made the difference in his life and in the relationship he had with the Lord.

Often I ask people if they study their Bibles, especially when they are seeking counsel about an issue that is very clearly outlined in God’s Word. I’m always surprised at the number of times I hear, “I try, but it is too hard to understand. I just leave the preaching and the studying up to you. I try to listen on Sundays.”

There is nothing difficult about reading God’s Word.

If you are having trouble, it could be the result of something that needs to be addressed such as a lack of faith in God or some unconfessed sin.

When we doubt His Word to us, we will not have the tools we need to see the circumstances of life clearly. I’ve counseled people and reminded them of God’s promises for a certain situation.

Before I could finish my sentence, they began talking, and usually their sentence began with, “But,” and then they went on to give one excuse after another as to why God would not work on their behalf. This is what I mean by a lack of faith. God’s love for us is everlasting. When you turn and come to Him, He will not cast you away. Moses lived on the back side of the desert for forty years. He probably thought no one cared for him, but God did. He loved Moses with an everlasting love. This is the same love He has for you and me. Moses, however, did not have the Holy Spirit or the Word of God to guide him. He had to rely on entering into God’s presence and listening for His instruction.

Without the Holy Spirit we do not have the ability to comprehend God’s truth. Yet the moment we surrender our lives to Him, He pours out His truth to us in such a way that we understand all we are being taught. If there is a question, He will take as much time as needed to teach us His truth. But if we want to unlock the truths the Bible contains, we must pick it up and begin to study it. God’s Spirit is willing to teach us what we need to know, but first we must make ourselves available to Him.

Through the study of God’s Word, we also learn the deeper things of God. It is one thing to know He loves us, but it is entirely different to realize that He has a plan for our lives. One of Satan’s greatest lies is that we can do anything we want to do and still be in the will of God. I have watched as young men and women become frustrated in their Christian walk and drift in their faith.

The way I discovered God’s will for my life was through submitting and studying what the Bible had to say about situations similar to my own.

The way I learned to obey was through prayer, surrender to God, and also by continuing to read about the lives of men and women who gave themselves to be used by God.

God’s Spirit gives us discernment. What we believe about God determines how we live! Far too many believers go through life without being grounded in the Word of God. They take a wrong turn because they have not taken time to learn what God wants them to do.

The apostle Paul writes,

Rejoice always; pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. Do not quench the Spirit; do not despise prophetic utterances. But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good; abstain from every form of evil. – 1 Thessalonians 5:16-22

One of the ways you quench God’s Spirit is when you ignore His call. He may be leading you to spend time in the morning with Him in prayer and Bible study. For days and weeks, you have felt a sense of drawing within your heart and you keep saying, “I’ll do it tomorrow.” If you do not have a godly grid system within your thought processes, then you cannot detect error and will be drawn away into all kinds of erroneous thinking and ventures. The Word of God was given to us, not only to lead us into salvation, but also to lead us into a godly way of life.

If we are to have lives that reflect God’s love and grace to others, we must know Him and His truth.

Are you living to know Him? If you are, then you will have a single desire welling up within you and that will be to “come” to Him. Like Moses, you will say, “I must turn aside now and see this marvelous sight.”

Come!

Excerpted with permission from 10 Principles for Studying Your Bible by Charles Stanley, copyright Thomas Nelson, 2008.

* * *

Your Turn

Are you seeking God and living to know Him? In what ways is He trying to get your attention? In what ways is He drawing you to Himself? Come join the conversation on our blog! We would love to hear from you! ~ Devotionals Daily