“What is your burning bush this week?” I heard one of my students ask another at lunch the other day.

What an interesting question, I thought. 

“It means where have you seen God speaking to you or working in your life?” the student explained to her friend. Then I put two and two together. The student was referring to the incident in the Bible when Moses was out tending sheep and noticed a bush that was in flames but not being burned up. As he went to look closer, God began speaking to him through the bush, telling him of his big assignment to go deliver the Israelites from their captivity in Egypt.

What was my burning bush this week?

It’s a little sad that when I thought back about my week, the only things that came to mind were the things that disappointed or frustrated me, times when I felt like I failed or something went wrong.

Why is it easy for me to focus on the negative rather than to observe and appreciate what God is doing? 

Jesus’s disciples had the same problem. Mark chapter 8 tells of a time when they were traveling by boat and realized they had forgotten to bring bread along. As they were discussing the matter, Jesus overheard them. “Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not hear?” He admonished them. (vs 18) He then reminded them about the not one, but TWO times they had watched Him feed thousands of people with just a few loaves of bread, with basketfuls left over. “Do you not yet understand?” (vs 21)

I determined the next couple of days that I would open my eyes to what God was doing around me. What I observed:

• An unexpected dinner and evening hanging out with (most of) my kids.
• An unplanned sunny afternoon on the patio of a coffee shop with my daughter, grandson, and two granddogs.
• A random interaction at a basketball game with someone I had never met before who had read my book. 
• Words with a waitress at a restaurant that led to a conversation about the shared loss of a daughter.

I think I need to be a little better about watching for “burning bushes.” They may not always be earth-shattering experiences like Moses, but they certainly attest to God’s goodness and His continued work in my life.

“That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you many know what is the hope to which He has called you, what are the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints.”     Ephesians 1:17-18