Thought for the Day - Autumn didn’t last long before first signs of winter
Well, that was interesting whilst it lasted. The bugs were too much and the raking of leaves didn’t quite get finished… all because we got -3C and snow, writes Rev Jon Bergen.
Crazy thing is by the time you read this the temperature is supposed to be back up to 20C. Welcome to Montana. But at least the mountains are lovely with all that new snow. That will stay there despite the warmer weather at my elevation.
So, that is this crazy weather preparing us for winter and the challenges of real snow and cold ahead.
I have been working through the life of Moses for my kids’ club and it is interesting to note the strange journey Moses had to face. He started life as a wee boy that was supposed to be fed to the crocodiles, but ended up in a palace as the adopted son to Pharoah’s daughter.
That worked pretty well till he was about 40 years old and then stupid is what stupid does and he became a murderer on the run to the wilderness for 40 years of peace and quiet. All for God to show up in a burning bush that didn’t burn up like a normal bush should have done.
An interesting part of that is that God told Moses to take off his sandals because the place was holy ground. What made that place holy? Seems a reasonable question to ask. That place had been there a long time. Moses may well have grazed the sheep past that spot over his 40 years of shepherding, but suddenly things changed.
It wasn’t Moses, he was the same guy hiding out. He wasn’t suddenly more spiritual. But the change was sudden like a Montana autumn ending and switching to flavours of winter.
The change was who was there in the bush, it was God’s presence. And like the snow on the mountains, God’s presence was there and though Moses went back to being Moses, the residual clung to his life for years to come.
So maybe a lesson we can take away is that like Montana weather and Moses’ story, we can as well expect some unexpected events to happen. The same place in our lives that seem familiar can suddenly shift
One day life is just ticking over and the next we find a ‘holy ground’ moment that makes us change.
I’m wondering what my next moment like that will be.