Follow Through (A return to the blog)

I was talking with a friend the other day about how one of his favorite (more of well noticed) things is seeing people pass the salvation army collectors at walmart every Christmas. It's not the fact that they pass them, it's the look on people's faces and the reactions of when confronted that there is a need in front of them and they have an oppurtunity to do something about it.

I am guilty of this myself. This is not about the salvation army though, this is about something bigger.

As we walk by these things we have a dendency to pay the minumum payment so to speak, we give our spare change so we don't feel like we passed it up. There is a relationalization that we have done something. We can drop our coins into the bucket. The hard part is done. Now we can continue shopping.

Conviction has incredible pull on the human heart, whether it be from society or divine nature.

The thing about conviction is that we have learned to pacify it. We know just how much we can do to get by without feeling guilty.

In an account called Exodus, there is a story of a man who was a tender for sheep for many years. He would be in the same fields day in and day out. One day though, as he is going through he comes across a bush that is on fire. At this point God calls out to him commanding him to take off his shoes because the ground he is on is holy. Now this man Moses has walked these lands for years, he has probably stood in the very spot before. The ground was holy and he didn't even relieze it.

So it goes on with God telling Moses that the His people in Egypt under serious oppression and that He hears their cries. He then tells Moses that he (Moses) is going to be the one to free them from this state.

Now Moses of course had a hard time swallowing this, he was not the perfect person in his eyes by far. He had a hard time speaking, how was he going to face a pharaoh and free all of those people. He had even commited murder. Why him? Why not some other super godly man. Why a man who has seemed to run from his convictions in the past?

God has heard these people's cries. So has Moses. So have you.

Most of us have heard the story from here:
Moses confronts the pharaoh and there is conflict. There is struggles and their is ridicule, but Moses follows through. The story goes on with the epic liberation of the people. With a triumpant escape from the oppressor.

Moses. followed. through.

So here the story is again, 2000-3000 years later. We are in the same shoes.

How many times will we pass through the field before we relieze the ground is holy?

We will see our burning bushes?

Maybe our convictions are a calling to something deeper inside us.

Maybe compassion is a call to action.

There is a cry of the people.
God hears the cry.
So do you.

Maybe it's time we take off our shoes because this ground is holy

and it's time for action.