Great events often turn on seemingly inconsequential ones. A sixty year marriage is born from a chance meeting. A career emerges from a summer job. A failure takes a break from his duties because he's curious, and the world is changed.

Moses looms large in the history of God's people. We read of his faith, obedience, accomplishments and lapses, but may overlook some of the details of how it began. We perhaps know that his mother put him in a tar covered basket into the Nile to protect him from Pharoah's decree. Then Pharaoh's own daughter happened to see him floating in the weeds, he was snatched from the Nile, and then raised in Pharoah's house. Years later, without introduction, he killed an Egyptian while trying help a fellow Hebrew, and then had to flee for his life. From there, we tend to jump to his encounter with God at the burning bush, as the larger-than-life Moses was called to duty. The reality was quite different. Moses obviously felt he was supposed to help his countrymen. He failed to give useful help, failed to win their respect, and failed to master his fear. He fled, found sanctuary, and then worked for forty years watching another man's herds. The man raised to royalty spent a lifetime doing menial work, exiled from home, heritage, and God.

Then one day, something unusal happened. Moses was working, and he saw a burning bush. We know it was unusual, because we know that God was there. But initially to Moses, it didn't necessarily mean anything more than a lightning strike, or a fire left unattended—unsual but not unique. But Moses was curious. He gave it more than a passing glance. He was not too preoccupied with his duties to be interested. He saw that the bush was burning, but not buring up. He decided to go closer.

. "When the LORD saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, "Moses! Moses" And Moses said, "Here I am."

God did not speak until Moses stopped to look. He, and all of creation, waited to see if a man would be interested, pay attention, and turn from his path. God's whole plan for saving His people depended on a never-been-has-been having a spark of curiosity.

In simpler times, parents taught their children to ”Stop, Look, and Listen” before crossing a railroad tracks. Perhaps our Father is still trying to teach His children to do the same—not for a train bound to tracks, but for the train of His royal robe that fills His temple. Perhaps God is waiting to see if you will look at what He is doing, waiting to speak. Perhaps.

LISTEN!

I've got a challenge for you. Wherever you are right now, whatever you're doing, listen. Identify every single sound that you hear. Every cricket, every bird, every car, every machine, every voice, every background noise. How many sounds had you filtered out? To what had you paid no attention?

I love the outdoors, especially forests. It renews me to spend time there, to be away from the cacophony of everyday noise, to hear what God has made instead of what we have. At first the quiet seems overwhelming—I've found that it takes me time to acclimate. In the first hours, I have to work to listen and see. I mentally rush as if I'm late on my commute to work, focused on a goal. I must listen to the layers of the sounds of solitude. The wind rustles the trees, an insect flies by, a bird sings, a deer snorts, a brook babbles—a thousand thousand small sounds surround me. The quiet place was not quiet at all. By the second day, my ears have awakened. By the third, it's normal to hear again.

I've got a more important challenge for you. What is God quietly speaking, what is every word? Quiet yourself to hear the still, small voice. It can't be adequately done in an hour or two...

What if God is speaking right now and no one is poised to listen? What if He is pouring out wisdom like rain, giving direction in how to follow Him in these days, and we are in our homes watching YouTube videos, not even remotely hearing the gentle patter of grace falling like rain outside our doors? What if His creation is filled with His voice and all that we hear is the sound of the things we have made?

It's always important to listen. But there are times when it's literally crucial. The honk as you step off the curb without looking; the heaven sent encouragement or admonition at exactly the right moment; the discouragement filling a friend's voice, telling you to cancel plans and spend time with him now; the inexplicable sense that a plan is very right or entirely wrong in spite of evidence to the contrary....

Perhaps its that kind of time. I believe it is.

He awakens Me morning by morning, He awakens My ear to listen as a disciple. The Lord GOD has opened My ear; (Isaiah 50)

The secret of the LORD is for those who fear Him...(Psalms 25)

I recently heard a story about a small local church that, after years of renting space from another church, bought their own building. They couldn't afford a “good” building in a “good” neighborhood, but they were glad and grateful, especially since they had been treated as renters rather than brothers and sisters. But not long afterward, an out-of-control truck crashed into their new meeting place. This started a sad process with insurance and building inspectors. Hidden structural defects were revealed and the insurance provider found a loophole for not covering all the damage. The inspector would not certify the building for use without major repairs. The congregation had no possible way to pay for those. Having a building is essential for growth, isn't it? It's foundational to how we think about church. What would you have done?

Angry words and lawsuits come to mind. That's the American way, isn't it? But it wasn't theirs. They consulted with the seller, and came up with a remarkable plan. They turned over the insurance settlement to the seller, and walked away, losing considerable money in the process. It was no longer possible to have their own meeting place, honoring Christ would allow no less. They abandoned the structure to save something much more important. Right priorities built on truth led to right, but painful, actions.

My own life experiences have included some truck wrecks. I've found the Body of Christ, The Church, to be “the fullness of Him who fills all in all” as the scriptures proclaim. But I've also often found the outward structure to have hidden damage that renders it unfit for use—unrepairable, and suitable only for abandoning. Indeed, I've fallen through “rotted” floors that looked solid, and sustained great hurt. Some ways of acting, thinking, and governing ourselves are so infected with rot that no repair project is possible.

To be clear, “church-hopping” is the opposite of what I'm trying to describe. We leave behind ways thinking and of doing things rather than leaving people. Intense loyalty to our spiritual family is one of the foundations of our faith. But just as a house, no matter how well built, eventually needs major repair or even replacement, so any human made structure decays. My family, both natural and spiritual, is worth tremendous sacrifice. My house's only real value is as a place for my family. Our means and methods of serving God are, at best, well intentioned human efforts of implementing eternal, unchanging truth that appropriately vary with time and culture. Time has passed and the culture is almost unrecognizable, and soon to become more so. Equally important, we often mistake cultural values, such as democracy and patriotism and prosperity, for Biblical values, and import them without question into our thinking and actions.

Our manner of structuring ourselves is (or should be) first based on scriptural principles. We then look for appropriate ways to implement those within a culture. Buildings with steeples and men with ties are examples of methods that seemed "right" in the first half of the 20th century but are not important to many anymore. We also find ways to adjust to our relationship with the government and the level of prosperity we enjoy. Beginning in Jerusalem and Rome, the Church has often lived with oppression, meeting in secret, while struggling to have sufficient food and shelter. We, however, have very different expectations. Much of our manner of service is based on the assumptions of prosperity and our county's blessing on our endeavors. We have also built parts of the Church with the world's presumptions, equating big with blessed, polished with pleasing God. What will happen if these assumptions are no longer valid?

Imagine. Churches large and small, whose focus has been on buildings rather than ministry, service, and worship, unable to sustain debt payments, closing en-mass in a long economic downturn. Congregations walking away from “under water” mortgages joining home owners who have done the same thing. Derelict buildings, formerly dedicated to the gathering of God's people, added to the already abandoned factories and shopping centers.

Imagine. Governments, strapped for cash, removing tax deductions for church contributions. Governments, strapped for truth, regulating the content of God's message. Governments, strapped for integrity, determining that committed followers of Christ need to be committed to appropriate institutions of detention to eliminate the dissenting voices.

Imagine. The Church, in adversity, immovable, unshakable, becoming stronger in worship and conviction. The Church, in poverty, giving more. The Church, in a hopeless world, extending the hope of glory more than ever before. Imagine that we are a part of that Church because we've followed the example of that small church, making right priorities built on truth rather then assumptions.

But each one should be careful how he builds. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man's work. 14 If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames. Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you? If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him; for God's temple is sacred, and you are that temple. (1 Corinthians 3)

Does love smell like candles and roses or pot roasts and potatoes? Or perhaps, something quite different?

The stench of urine was strong as I opened the office door--intense, out of place, as if I were entering a primitive privy. I followed the odor to its source; an early teen sitting on her father’s lap. She was content, secure. He was oblivious, carrying on a conversation with another person while gently holding his daughter. She looked briefly at me and returned to her own world. He interrupted himself and greeted me. And I remembered what he had told me on another day.

A serious health crisis at birth had left her without the hope of ever being normal physically or mentally. Diapers were the way of life and midnight hospital runs were not uncommon. He spoke, surprisingly without embarrassment, of having to care for her very private needs as adolescence changed her body from a child’s to a young woman’s. He loved her, cared for her, and thoroughly enjoyed her as she was. I had thought him to be a great father and now I knew it to be true.

That chance encounter has troubled me. I know what it implies and I don’t like it. It’s as if Jesus had spoken a parable that turned everything upside down, as He often did in the Gospels: the outcast is the friend; the last is the first; the pauper is in paradise while the rich man is in Hell. The human parable seems clear: I am the girl who reeks of urine. I am the one who can offer nothing and costs everything. I am the one who should be an embarrassment, but am cared for and loved. And respected—not for what I do, but for who I am—a child of the Father.

I know of only one verse that speaks of “rights” specifically given without respect to a position of responsibility. Dignity and value are strongly implied for all because we are made in the image of God. The poor, the orphan, the widow, and the prisoner deserve our compassion and care, but do not have a “right” to it. We are commanded to treat them well and to not do so angers God. And in the Bible, there is no right of free speech, or to assemble, or to bear arms. There is a much more important one…

Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—(John 1:12)

I thought I had many rights, but I really have only one. Scholars can write learned books about it, preachers can speak about it. But a disabled girl and her daddy explained it to me. I have the right to become a child of God, to be loved by Him and to give what love I can in return—however flawed it is.

In this parable, love smelled like urine. It looked like a daddy who didn’t choose to notice. It felt like security and peace in one who was unable to deal with any of life’s complexities. The reality of being a child of God: Unexpected. Disturbing. My highest privilege, my only right.