Turning Aside

"When the Lord saw that he turned aside to look, God called him to the midst of the bush and said, "Moses, Moses!" And he said, "Here I am."
-Exodus 3:4
      I have been reading the book of Exodus and I came across the story of the burning bush. While the story of the burning bush is quite incredible, I remember reading about something interesting in a devotional. It didn't focus on the burning bush, but it was about turning aside. In the passage, Moses sees the bush and doesn't ignore it; he stops what he is doing and he turns aside. This is a good metaphor which I will hopefully be able to explain somewhat.
      At first glance it may seem like a burning bush is some crazy thing, but it really wasn't. It's a hot desert, and many things could have caused the fire. However, Moses noticed someone was different about this bush. The bush was burning but was not consumed by the flames. Now that is a crazy incident. In my entire life I have never seen something be burning but not consumed. The key thing to note is that Moses would not have seen this if he did not take the time to turn aside and look at it.
      The burning bush event was very significant for both Moses and Israel. God told Moses that He heard the cry of Israel and was going to deliver them. This incident was a turning point for Moses. He heard God and God gave him a mission and a promise. Again I have to stress; if Moses did not turn aside, he would have missed this profound moment for the nation of Israel.
      How does this apply to us? We have become a very fast paced and always busy generation. We are constantly doing things for work, pleasure, school or otherwise. It seems like everywhere I look people are constantly doing things. While this isn't always a bad thing, it can cause us miss things in life. I believe it is extremely important that we take time to just "turn aside". We can miss important things if we allow ourselves to be consumed by the busyness of the world.
      What does this look like practically? I'm not totally sure. I think something we can do however is to take breaks from our "busyness". Take a 5 minute break every now and then. Don't get on the computer, don't get on the phone, don't watch tv, and don't make excuses for not taking a break. Just sit or lie down (I personally like to lie down) and take a look around. I like to think about different things during this time. It doesn't really matter what you do, but the point is to get away from the busyness of the world. One thing I would highly recommend is to pray and ask God to reveal something He wants to show to you. Let God show you something, it just might be something incredible.  
-Smart