The fire hadn’t burned anything. That’s what made me stop.
I’d seen thornbushes catch fire before—it happened in the heat all the time out here. But this one… it wasn’t turning black. No smoke. No crackling branches. Just flames dancing and not destroying.
I stepped closer, sandals crunching the sand beneath me. Something deep in my chest beat louder than my footsteps—like my heart knew something I didn’t.
Then a voice. From the flames.
“Moses. Moses.”
I dropped to my knees so fast I scraped my palms. I hadn’t heard my name spoken like that in years—with power, with gentleness, with a weight that settled over me like a thick blanket.
“Here I am,” I whispered.
“Do not come any closer. Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.”
Holy ground. And me—a runaway, an ex-prince who had killed a man and fled the only people I’d ever known—standing on it.
I fell forward, face to the earth, unsure what to do. The voice continued, telling me of my people’s suffering in Egypt, of promises made long ago to fathers with names like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Of freedom. Of rescue. Of a plan that somehow… included me.
Me.
That’s when I asked the question. Not out of curiosity. Out of fear.
“If they ask me Your name,” I whispered, “what should I tell them?”
The answer burned hotter than the fire.
“I AM WHO I AM. Tell them ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”
I waited. Surely there was more—some grand, secret name like the Egyptians gave their many gods. But that was it. Just “I AM.” The words sat in the warm silence like stones in my hands. And then He spoke again:
“This is my name forever. The name you shall call me from generation to generation.”
The name wasn’t hidden like a treasure we weren’t supposed to touch. It wasn’t a whisper meant for only priests in the temple. It was holy—but not secret. Not to be feared or erased. YHWH.
I didn’t understand it all then. I only knew this: the God who is—the God who always was, who always will be—had chosen to say His name aloud to someone like me.
Now, when I say His name, I don’t whisper.
Because He didn’t whisper it to me.
He called it out, through fire and wilderness and fear.
He is I AM. Eternal. Ever-present. Not a name to fear… but a name to trust.
And that name gave me courage to go back to Egypt—to face the Pharaoh, to face my past, and to lead a people who had forgotten what God sounded like.
That day, I stopped believing I was alone.
That name meant: He IS. And that meant He was with me.
And He’s still with us now.
The fire hadn’t burned anything. That’s what made me stop.
I’d seen thornbushes catch fire before—it happened in the heat all the time out here. But this one… it wasn’t turning black. No smoke. No crackling branches. Just flames dancing and not destroying.
I stepped closer, sandals crunching the sand beneath me. Something deep in my chest beat louder than my footsteps—like my heart knew something I didn’t.
Then a voice. From the flames.
“Moses. Moses.”
I dropped to my knees so fast I scraped my palms. I hadn’t heard my name spoken like that in years—with power, with gentleness, with a weight that settled over me like a thick blanket.
“Here I am,” I whispered.
“Do not come any closer. Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.”
Holy ground. And me—a runaway, an ex-prince who had killed a man and fled the only people I’d ever known—standing on it.
I fell forward, face to the earth, unsure what to do. The voice continued, telling me of my people’s suffering in Egypt, of promises made long ago to fathers with names like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Of freedom. Of rescue. Of a plan that somehow… included me.
Me.
That’s when I asked the question. Not out of curiosity. Out of fear.
“If they ask me Your name,” I whispered, “what should I tell them?”
The answer burned hotter than the fire.
“I AM WHO I AM. Tell them ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”
I waited. Surely there was more—some grand, secret name like the Egyptians gave their many gods. But that was it. Just “I AM.” The words sat in the warm silence like stones in my hands. And then He spoke again:
“This is my name forever. The name you shall call me from generation to generation.”
The name wasn’t hidden like a treasure we weren’t supposed to touch. It wasn’t a whisper meant for only priests in the temple. It was holy—but not secret. Not to be feared or erased. YHWH.
I didn’t understand it all then. I only knew this: the God who is—the God who always was, who always will be—had chosen to say His name aloud to someone like me.
Now, when I say His name, I don’t whisper.
Because He didn’t whisper it to me.
He called it out, through fire and wilderness and fear.
He is I AM. Eternal. Ever-present. Not a name to fear… but a name to trust.
And that name gave me courage to go back to Egypt—to face the Pharaoh, to face my past, and to lead a people who had forgotten what God sounded like.
That day, I stopped believing I was alone.
That name meant: He IS. And that meant He was with me.
And He’s still with us now.
