This is the narrative of God’s call of Moses.Often we consider the call to ministry an abrupt “burning bush” experience, referring to 3:2 where God speaks through a bush that is on fire but is not consumed. So God speaks, and Moses answers. But could not the call to ministry be a progressive call? A series of smaller steps or “testings” through which we experience and respond to the sacred. Let’s look more closely at the progression that I see in the text.   Moses, a Levite and a shepherd, had fled to the desert of Midian (see 2:11-15). He sat by a well. While there, he met Zipporah, Jethro’s daughter. Moses watered the family’s flocks and when the family was threatened by a band of shepherds, Moses rescued them. These were acts of hospitality that led to a relationship in marriage to Zipporah. They would have a son named Gershom. So Moses had a vocation, a reputation, and a residence, and a family.  The progression continues while Moses is at work tending sheep in the desert for Jethro. 1. The narrator tells us that an angel of the Lord appeared in the flames (v. 2a). 2. Moses saw this and decided to check it out (v.v. 2b, 3). 3. God spoke to Moses. 4. Moses answered, “Here I am” (v. 4b). 5. God commands Moses to take off his sandals and then explains the plight of the Israelites (v.v.6-9). 6. God told Moses to go (v. 10). 7. Moses questions God (v. 11). 8. And God said, “I will be with you” (v. 12). Through a progression of events, the human and the divine intertwine. Blessings in Christ, Pastor Bob