Three pictures of the same object taken at different distances and times. The object looks different in all three pictures, but what is it?
At first, I thought it was lightning hitting the tree, but no, lightning wouldn’t “drip” like that. Then I thought it might be radioactivity, but again, there is that dripping.
Finally, I decided the tree was on fire, but again, that just seems WRONG. It did, however remind me of an encounter from the book of Exodus…
World English Bible ( Exodus 3 )
1 Now Moses was keeping the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the back of the wilderness, and came to God’s mountain, to Horeb.
2 The angel of Yahweh appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed.
3 Moses said, “I will turn aside now, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt.”
4 When Yahweh saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the midst of the bush, and said, “Moses! Moses!” He said, “Here I am.”
5 He said, “Don’t come close. Take your sandals off of your feet, for the place you are standing on is holy ground.”
6 Moreover he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to look at God.
7 Yahweh said, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows.
8 I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey; to the place of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite.
9 Now, behold, the cry of the children of Israel has come to me. Moreover I have seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them.
10 Come now therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh, that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.”
11 Moses said to God, “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?”
12 He said, “Certainly I will be with you. This will be the token to you, that I have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.”
13 Moses said to God, “Behold, when I come to the children of Israel, and tell them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you;’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ What should I tell them?”
14 God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM,” and he said, “You shall tell the children of Israel this: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”
This encounter of Moses with God says many things, but I would like to focus on only one. The closer Moses came to God, the more he understood about the Almighty and what God wanted him to do. The same can be said for us. The closer we are to God, the more we will come to know HIM and serve HIM.
How? By reading and studying the Scriptures, by prayer and the practical application of the principles learned from the Bible. By the reality of becoming a faithful Christian and allowing God to work through us.
No, I didn’t forget about the pictures at the beginning of this post. They were originally all one picture, but I separated them in order to emphasize closeness. So, what are they anyway? The answer: time lapse photography of fireflies hovering around a tree.
Perhaps, if we “hover” around God long enough, we will glow ( spiritually ) something like them. We can only hope!!!