Moses, Feet, and Dirt

Why did God tell Moses to take his sandals off?  Moses, probably smelling like goats and sweaty from walking up the side of a mountain, was probably pretty curious as to how a bush could stay on fire for so long.  Then God talks to him from the flames.  "Take your shoes off, the ground you're standing on is holy."

I can't remember the cultural specifics about why taking his shoes off is more of a holy thing to do than to leave his shoes on.  I don't usually ask people to take their shoes off, especially when they've been sweating in them all day, because I'm not real interested in smelling the stench.  But God tells him to take his sandals off of his sweaty feet and plant those calloused, smelly soles in the dirt.

Now Moses is standing there in front of this bush that is burning, isn't spreading, and apparently isn't burning up with sweat running down his legs, mixing with the dirt on the ground and this is holy.  Moses smells like goats and unwashed man, has dirty feet, and this is holy.

Maybe when God said "Take your shoes off" He wanted Moses to be a little less clothed.  Not in a weird, eww God has a foot fetish, but in a "Hey, I remember when Adam and Eve walked around naked and weren't ashamed, and that was holy" type of way.  Maybe God was inviting Moses to be known and to be unashamed.

I think I hear those words everyday.  Take your shoes off, be vulnerable with me, this is holy.

Night Time

I had a lengthened thought process over the past two days. 

Scene 1:

My wife and I are sitting outside at Starbucks, drinking the last of a gift card and I was struck by how odd the sun is.  Think about it.  There is a big ball that hangs in the sky and lights up everything it shines on.  No joke.  I'm still not sure I can capture the feeling I had; it was probably closest to "Whoa." 

Fastforward to the next night...

Scene 2:

I'm driving home at about 10:30pm from dropping off my sister Brianna, whose birthday we had just celebrated.  It was dark, and the streetlights were glowing orange along the two-lane highway we call an expressway in the Midwest.  They were just so puny.  They had, compared to that weird ball in the sky, very little to offer, and barely made a dent in the overwhelming lack of light.

So here's what I thought to myself as I listened to my radio and drove through Springfield at almost 11:00pm.

"Humans are a lot like those puny orange lights that are supposed to light the night.  The lights do a pretty good job keeping people from breaking into stuff in the night, from hurting one another, and from being altogether rambunctious.  Humans do a pretty good job constructing systems, laws, and reasons to keep from descending into absolute chaos.  But its nothing like the sun."

I think that maybe when God began to redeem us through Jesus He was saying something like... "Quit building your street lights.  You need to be the Sun."