God called to Moses from the bush.  And Moses said, “Here I am” (Exodus 3:4).

This week we’ve been exploring what it means to Restart.  How do we keep going in what feels like an unending wilderness?  How do we “find God” in situations that seem only to communicate God’s absence?  Where do we gain the energy to hear and obey God when we feel weighed and dragged down by so many factors in our circumstances, so many factors within our own hearts and souls?

As best we can tell from Exodus 3 and 4, Moses was not looking for God.  He does not appear to be “full of faith” or expectancy or anticipation.  Egypt—and God’s enslaved people Israel—seem so long ago, far away and now out of reach.

But do we notice: Mount Horeb, where Moses is freshly encountered by God, is about halfway from where Moses was (in Midian) to where God was calling him to (Egypt).  Moses figured he was just shepherding the flocks in his charge, randomly looking for pasturage.  In fact, God was drawing him, first to Himself and then back into Moses’ calling.

Moses thinks he’s in the middle of nowhere, but finds he is in the presence of God.  He’s seen these kinds of bushes hundreds of times, but now one is lit by divine fire, burning but not burning up.  And the ordinary soil of his everyday life?  Holy ground.

God arrests Moses’ attention (a bush aflame that is not consumed!)  Then God speaks—and what God says first is a name—Moses’ name.

When God calls Moses by name, Moses replies: Hineni (hee-nay-nee).   Hineni is a personal word, “Here I am.”  It’s a word of personal response, “Here I am, listening, attentive, ready to respond.”

Hineni can be a word of restarting for us.  “Lord, it’s me: Here I am.”  Even if we feel we have disqualified ourselves; even if I’m not sure I’m that interested any longer in “God’s will for my life”; even if it feels like “nothing has happened” for a long time; even if I have no idea what to do; even when we feel that we are far from God, and God is far from us.

Hineni: here I am.  Here I am, just as I am—no pretense, no promises, no resolutions, no agenda.  Just me, doing my best to simply show up before the God I hope has not lost track of me.

What we discover: our hineni is always spoken in response to God’s prior hineni, our “Here I am” an echoing of God’s already “HERE I AM.”

And with that, we may begin anew.

Restart; fresh start; begin anew—what rises within your heart when you read and hear these words and phrases?  Give an honest answer, not a religious one!

What if, despite how things feel to you, God is already speaking your name and saying to you, “Here I am”?  If God’s already made the first move towards you … what next move would you like to make?