Here’s Moses on the backside of the desert day after week after month after year. Decades go by. And then something happens. Among the many bushes in the wilderness, one burns brightly without being consumed, causing Moses to eventually realize that the Lord was with him.

Where is God today?

He’s in the bush sitting next to you.

“That prickly person?” you ask.

Yes. God is here in the person sitting next to you, in the person you’re married to, in the person you work with.

“Wait a minute,” you protest. “The Lord certainly can’t speak through my husband, my parents, or my boss. They’re not on fire.”

Oh, but there’s what you need to see. The bush was not on fire. The fire was in the bush. You might think people around you aren’t on fire. That may be true. But if they’re believers, the fire is in them . . .

Although Jesus did mighty works in Capernaum, there were those who scoffed and said, “We know Him. He’s the son of the carpenter. Aren’t His brothers and sisters among us?” (Matthew 13). They thought He was the son of a carpenter, failing to realize He is the Son of the Creator.

In Mark 6, the disciples are toiling; the waves are mounting; the wind is howling. And in the middle of the night, they see someone walking toward them. A legend of their day said that right before fishermen drowned, they saw a spirit coming toward them. No wonder their fear was rising. “It’s a ghost!” the disciples cried, until Jesus said, “Be of good cheer. It is I.”

As two disciples walked toward Emmaus, they were joined by One who asked them why they were so sad. “Are you a stranger here?” they asked incredulously, not recognizing it was Jesus Himself who walked beside them (Luke 24).

Finding the tomb empty that Easter morning, Mary Magdalene wept. Seeing a man she supposed to be the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have moved the body, tell me where you have taken Him.” But when the “gardener” answered and spoke her name, she recognized Him for who He was (John 20).

Jesus dwells with us in the carpenters’ sons, in those we think we know. He speaks to us through people who may frighten us as they dare to rattle the bars of our beliefs. He reaches out to us through strangers walking alongside us. He speaks to us through gardeners, through plumbers, through those who work beside and for us. Oh, they might not be on fire. But the fire is in them; and the Lord can use them as easily, as powerfully, and as surprisingly as He can use a common, everyday bush like you.