Farmers 'N' Fire

Farmers 'N' Fire - starts like this after wheat harvest is done. Every day as I commute home for a few weeks the skyline is full of smoke lifting skyward, like today.

They burn off the wheat stubble. When I first married almost 26 years ago and moved to Kansas, burning wheat stubble was very popular in Manitoba where I came from but not done much here in Kansas. For me the smell of smoke reminds me of fall, not summer. Over the years, the practise has increased along with no-till farming here in Kansas.

When I saw this fire and the farmers keeping watch - I wondered "What if God spoke to them through that fire like he did Moses and the burning bush? Wouldn't they pee their pants in surprise? Or would they even recognize Him...surely even today people would listen. Would they call 911 or report it to the paper or ignore it or make a pact not to tell anyone, or tell people and they'd think they' smoked something else besides stubble? "

Maybe some days I need a burning bush....so caught up in the whirlwind of life, to take pause and listen to God - a good reminder for me to do that more often. When I realize houses and barns aren't burning, I can find beauty in the odd smoke filled skys.

"After forty years had passed, an angel appeared to Moses in the flames of a burning bush in the desert near Mount Sinai." Acts 7:30

We recently studied this passage in Sunday School, some wondering if it was an actual burning bush or plant or metaphor. Some believe that it refers more to Mt Sinai and from Old Testament passages of fire on Mt Sinai may have been incorrectly translated to the New Testament. I'm not a biblical scholar. so I'll stick with what the burning bush represents to me and my faith today.