We often search for signs, for some kind of indication that we are doing the right thing, making the right decision, heading down the right path. It would be helpful if those signs could be as visible as the one Moses received from God in the first reading. It’s hard to miss a burning bush. What God was asking Moses to do was an enormous task so a shrub conflagration seems an appropriate signal.

Moses isn’t sure he’s up to the task: Who am I to do this, he asks God. I do that too, sometimes when I know I should be doing the right thing, but peer pressure, habit can lead to the easier way. But, like Moses, I can’t use the excuse that I was just walking by and happened upon a burning bush.  I have to do the right thing and I can because God is with me.

The gospel is simple, yet powerful. It carries through the theme of how we each are chosen by God. You do not have to be the wise and learned – some things are revealed to the childlike.  To me, that means that I can be chosen by God as a leader in my own life, even as I continue to work on understanding and learning what that role should be and how I should live that life. My relationship with God evolves and changes as I evolve and change.

I doubt that God will produce a burning bush to get my attention. I still have to pay attention, to pray and to be open to what God has in store for me. Even if the path seems hard and little traveled, I have to remember that God is with me.

This reflection was written by Carol Zuegner, for these readings, in 2009.