Your Holy Ground

Following Jesus with Bare Feet...

…Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground. (Exodus 3:5)

Many years ago I was grappling with a question as I sat before the Lord in my coffee hour, with my Bible and diary open before me: 

'How do I last the distance as I say yes to the Lord’s assignment for the next phase of my life? How do I persevere?'

I’ve lived long enough to realise that the pathway to fulfilling any task from the Lord accompanies difficulty and opposition, discouragement and the danger of burnout. I knew it will take more than my willpower and determination to endure, and stay focused on the call God has given over a sustained period of time.

Then suddenly into my mind came the image of Moses being initiated into the divine call at the burning bush in the wilderness, as he beheld the common unattractive desert bush, but burning with fire that did not go out nor consumed the bush.

I wondered, as Moses stared at the worthless desert bush burning with unquenchable holy fire, whether he saw himself in it. Washed out, wasted, a has-been - burnt out in the desert furnace on the backside of the wilderness. Then without warning his bush ignites and begins to burn once again, kindled this time with a divine flame which does not go out, unlike the human zeal and the idealism of his younger days.

And there, he hears the voice of God who gives him the assignment for the next phase of his life.

Take off your sandals, for the place you stand is holy ground.

As I stared at the Bible passage, I knew God was answering my question:

Where your desert bush burns in the wilderness with holy fire, there is your holy ground, and that fire will not go out. You must stand on that holy ground again and again, and hear the voice of the One who speaks from the divine flame.

The holy assignment requires the baring of your feet, and you are to follow the Lord to the end of your days with your feet bared - in humility, vulnerability, surrender and in utter dependence upon Him.

I looked up and said yes to the Lord.

Then I asked myself:

Where is your holy ground? Where does your holy fire burn?

And I knew the answer.

So I return to the humble little corner table in my life again and again, as I follow the Lord Jesus Christ in my faltering halting steps. There I keep my appointment with Him, and I lay down one by one, my armaments and arguments and self-congratulations, as I wait to hear the voice of the Holy One who speaks into my life over and over again.

Mia Kim