Before You Ask: Coming Boldly to the God Who Answers

I first taught this lesson in a season when the whole world felt uncertain, when the people I love were afraid, and prayer felt both more needed and somehow harder. I have noticed something in myself over the years, and maybe you have noticed it too. There are people I both long to be near and quietly pull back from at the same time. I have felt it with people I have loved, with some I have worked under, and, if I am honest, with God himself. We want to come close, and we are afraid to.

The Bible knows this feeling, and it does not scold us for it. It meets us in it.

Moses hid his face

When God appeared to Moses, he came in fire. "The angel of the LORD appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush; and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed" (Exodus 3:2). Moses turned aside to see. But when God spoke out of the fire and named himself, Moses' courage left him. "And Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to look upon God" (Exodus 3:6).

There it is, that same pull in both directions. The fire drew him and frightened him at once. He wanted to see, and he could not bear to look.

The One who lets us come and live

Notice who is in the fire. It is "the angel of the LORD." Many readers through the centuries have seen in the Angel of the Lord an appearing of the Son himself, before he was born in Bethlehem, God making a way for a man to stand in his presence and not be destroyed. That is the wonder of the burning bush. The fire burned, and the bush was not consumed. A sinful man drew near to a holy God, and he lived.

We were never meant to be casual about that. Scripture is honest that no one can see God's face and live (Exodus 33:20). And yet here is God arranging a way for Moses to meet him and walk away. The Angel in the fire is the mercy in the fire.

Jesus made the way

What was a glimpse at the bush became the whole story at the cross. Jesus came and did what the burning bush pointed toward. By his own death he opened a way for us to come to God without being destroyed. "Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus... let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith" (Hebrews 10:19-22).

So the writer of Hebrews can say the very thing that would have terrified Moses at the bush. Come boldly. "Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need" (Hebrews 4:16). The veil is torn. The fire no longer consumes. The mixed feelings can finally rest, because the danger that made us pull back has been taken into the body of Christ.

Before you ask

And then there is this, which I keep coming back to. We hesitate to bring God our deepest needs, as though we have to talk him into caring. But listen to how he describes himself. "It shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear" (Isaiah 65:24).

Before you call. While you are still speaking. God is not waiting to be persuaded. He is already moving toward you. The help is on the way before the prayer is finished.

Look for what he has already begun

So I will leave you where I left that room years ago, with a question rather than a lecture. Think back over the things you are most afraid for, the people you are carrying to God right now. Can you see any place where he has already begun to answer, in some small way you almost missed?

Because if he has begun, even quietly, then you can trust he is also working in the ways you cannot see. The God of the burning bush has made a way for you to come. He answers before you call. So come, and come boldly. There is no fire here that will consume you. There is only a Father who has been listening the whole time.