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About the Burning Bush

The Burning Bush is a blog that publishes God stories…stories about God relating to ordinary people in extraordinary ways…His ways.

When God called Moses to lead the people of Israel to the promised land, He got his attention by talking to him out of a burning bush. Moses was standing on holy ground. God was telling Moses to do the most important thing Moses had ever been told to do. He told Moses, “You must lead my people Israel out of Egypt.” (Exodus 3:10b)

Moses had been prepared by God. Everything he experienced in his life previously was preparation for this task to lead the people of Israel out of Egypt into the promised land. Moses had spent forty years in Egypt. He was an Israelite. In his early years he was trained up by godly parents who knew the value of life, who loved and honoured God.

Then he was groomed in Pharaoh’s palace where he was a prince who learned all the ways of the palace and how Pharaoh’s kingdom worked. As an Egyptian prince, he spent some time walking among his Israelite brothers, listening to them, observing them, filling his heart with their concerns to the point where he murdered on their behalf.

When he was forced to flee to the desert, he spent forty years learning the ways of the desert and how to lead sheep in that lonely dry place. Moses was absolutely prepared when God called him. God pointed out that Moses would be using his rod as a sign of power and authority. God sent his brother Aaron to help him in the areas in which he was not personally gifted. And most importantly, God promised to go with him.

What area of influence do you have? What task has God prepared you to do? God has given you talents. He has given you a commission. He has given you brothers and sisters to assist. And, He speaks to you all along the way. “Stretch out your staff.” “Speak to the rock.” “Come up the mountain.” “Send out the spies.” “Rest now.” “Go now.” “Get others to help with the everyday decisions.”

“The Burning Bush” is here to tell our God stories. What is God doing with us, for us, through us…His ordinary people?

“I Want to Dance Again”

A prayer answered.

Marion knew the Lord was her healer. That wasn’t the problem. The problem, pure and simple, it hurt terribly to walk. She had walked all though IKEA one day and the next day she couldn’t walk, there was so much pain in her hip. This was more than three years ago.

She went to the doctor who, after an ultra sound, told her she had mild arthritis, tendinitis, bursitis and a pulled muscle. Physio was recommended. Her condition gradually improved over the next six months and the pain decreased, but her hip still would not work properly. She couldn’t go too far without a cane. Nearly three years after her hip problem started she decided there must be more wrong since she still could not walk very far.

The doctor scheduled an MRI. Now, there is something you have to understand about Marion. She was not too keen on medical procedures or hospital stays. This stems back to her childhood, when as a very little girl she suffered through scarlet fever in isolation in a hospital; all alone in a hospital room, no awareness of why, no human contact except for the faces in the window of the door. This caused major trauma: she didn’t speak for a year after that, and the fear of all things medical stayed with her throughout her life.

Yet, with prayer and her eyes on the Lord, she continued to go forward trusting God in the process. The results of the MRI showed that her hip was severely arthritic. While she was waiting for a consultation with the surgeon, she heard in her spirit, “Don’t let anyone tell you, you have options.” She discarded that as not something God would say.

The surgeon told her she had two options: she could have a simple injection or she could have an operation. With an operation there was a one per cent chance that something could go wrong. That something involved a myriad of distressing outcomes which the doctor described in detail.

Marion chose the needle which turned out to be painful and did absolutely nothing to improve the condition of her hip. She realized she should have listened to what she had heard in the surgeon’s waiting room. She saw the surgeon again after a few months and ‘the operation’ was arranged for three months ahead. 

While she was journaling one day, Marion heard the Lord say, “I’m your strength. I’m your portion. I will provide everything that you need as you go. Don’t be afraid: you will come through this with flying colours, victorious. In the process you will minister to others and be a blessing. There’s a purpose for this process, it’s not just about you.”

So, Marion subjected herself to the hospital procedure and the Lord gave her absolute peace. She told Him she wanted to be able to dance again and walk normally and believed the Lord when He asked her to trust Him.

When she arrived at the hospital, and during the process she had absolute peace. The night after the operation she slept like a baby. She didn’t need pain medications the next day and was able to walk with a walker. On the third day she came home from the hospital. By the second week she walked into the village and back with the walker, a distance of four kilometres. The third week she could drive and by six weeks she was able to dance. Meanwhile the doctor had suggested it would be a year before full recovery.

Marion knows the Lord healed her. He didn’t do it the way she originally wanted (an instant healing with no medical intervention), but He did one better. Marion admits, “I had a lot of fears surrounding doctors and hospitals. None of that would have been dealt with if I had had a miracle. I learned to trust. What He said was true and came to pass. It was incredible to go through an operation without fear.” She sees her recovery as miraculous, but the biggest miracle for her was being able to go through it without any of the old anxiety.

The Lord impressed upon Marion that the secret is in following Him, in being willing to go through the process without trying to take shortcuts or avoiding the hard places. He told her, “I want my church to be willing to go through the process of healing and wholeness and not just seek me for the immediate results.” 




		
	
	


	



			
				


			

			
Don’t Let the Bedbugs Bite!
		
	
	

		






Lynne knew there was trouble in the bedroom when she woke up itchy and discovered a pattern of red marks on her lower leg and across her shoulders that looked suspiciously like the classic description of bedbug bites. As she had recently given up her bedroom to host relatives who had spent the night previous in a hotel in Toronto, a city notorious for bedbugs, it didn’t take Lynne long to put two and two together. 





But now what? “Bedbugs
multiply faster than rabbits,” says Lynne. She cringed at taking the troublesome,
unhealthy and expensive course of action involving pesticides. So, Lynne
decided to claim her status as a child of the King. 





She began by navigating
scripture, landing on Psalm 91, verses 5, 6 and 9 to 11: “You shall not be afraid of the terror by
night, nor of the arrow that flies by day,
nor of the
pestilence that walks in darkness, nor of the destruction that lays waste
at noonday….Because you have made the Lord, who is my refuge,
even the Most
High, your dwelling place, no evil shall befall you, nor shall any plague come near your
dwelling; for He
shall give His angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways.” NKJV





Bedbugs definitely qualified as plague, just ask
any Toronto hotel owner. And, her bedroom was assuredly her dwelling place.
Lynne prayed these verses over her room and claimed the promises in them as her
inheritance. The next morning, she woke with several bites, but not as many as
the first night. She renewed her prayers. By the second morning the bugs were
gone without a trace. 





Lynne knows that she knows that she is a daughter
of the King. 

	


	



			
				


			

			
What Tumor?
		
	
	

		

Kat and Tom thank the Lord for completely removing the tumor.





The doctor matter-of-factly announced, “Look Tom, we’ve got a tumor.” They were looking at a screen shot of Tom’s prostate. 





Kat,
a nurse by profession, saw the tumor on the screen. “I could see a sort of
purple octopus the size of a thumb. I could see lesions.” 





Tom and Kat are husband and wife and have been
friends for a lifetime. They decided together to
surrender the situation to God. If it was Tom’s time to go, so be it. They
agree that surrendering Tom’s future and health to God was a powerful moment.
“In child-like faith, we were walking in the kingdom,” says Kat. “I kept saying
to Tom, ‘I have such peace about this!’ We actually laughed and were joyful.” 





Kat
admits that normally in such a situation Tom would be sitting with his head in
his hands worrying and she would very likely be freaking out. 





Kat
laid hands on Tom and prayed. Kat knows there is healing in her. “I practise
where it is safe for me,” she admits. She once laid hands on her dog who was
having a seizure and immediately the seizures stopped.





For Tom, things got progressively worse…medically speaking.  Tom developed a horrible infection. The tumor grew to protrude into the bladder. The doctors did not want to operate as Tom was judged too old and too weak to endure an operation. All through this time—which dragged out for some months—Tom and Kat were experiencing a supernatural, joyful playfulness. They had peace. As the tumor grew, Kat was thinking, ‘This should be something to worry about.’ But she didn’t worry. They left it in the Lord’s hand, everyday giving thanks for the finished work on the cross. 





Simultaneously,
Pastor Bob, began preaching a series of sermons on healing. He introduced the
series by saying “I don’t know why I am doing this—I wasn’t planning to preach
on healing.” 





Kat
truly believes it was specifically for them. “God has been so amazingly present
with us through this. God is awesome.”





On
a warm spring day, Tom and Kat drove to a follow-up appointment. Kat was sure
the tumor was gone, but Tom was worried. “Tom it’s gone,” Kat assured him.





Tom
answered, “I know God is in this and if you believe it’s gone, it’s gone!” 





After
another ultra-sound, the doctor sat them down and told them there was still a
little bit of infection and he would give Tom antibiotics to deal with that. 





Kat
blurted, ‘What about the tumor?’ 





“The
doctor looked at me totally bewildered,” says Kat. “He said, ‘What tumor? There
is no tumor.’”





That
is when Kat started to cry. Tom pointed and looked up. He knew where his
healing had come from. 





Kat
proclaims, “Not only did the Lord take the tumor away, He made it like it never
existed, even in the mind of the doctor.”