I grew up playing baseball. I mean, with the last name of Ruth… In the ‘80s… There wasn’t really any other sport that I should have played. For the better part of my early years… from the time I could walk, all the way until I graduated high school… Baseball was a major part of my life. I remember sitting on my dad’s lap, watching the Cubs play on tv. I remember playing catch in the front yard of the apartment we lived in for a little while when I was super young. And as we were growing up on the South Side of South Bend, Indiana, my brothers and I made a baseball field in our backyard… Playing every day of the summer with the small wooden baseball bat we had as we pitched tennis balls to each other in our backyard.

Baseball. It was a way of life growing up. We knew all of the greats. Mantle. Maris. Clemente. Robinson. Banks. Sandberg. Grace. The Penguin. And Ruth… Babe Ruth. We dreamed of making it to the Big Leagues and playing in the same stadiums as our Hall of Fame favorites once did. The reality is that none of us did grow up to make it in the Big Leagues. But we did get to go somewhere special when we were younger…

Cooperstown, New York.

For those of you who aren’t baseball fans, this small town name doesn’t mean anything to you. If you’re a modest baseball fan, you might not even know this town either. But a true baseball fan, the person who absolutely loves this game, knows the significance of this little town. You see, each year the greats of baseball come to this town to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Cooperstown, New York. It’s hallowed ground really. I remember when me, my mom and dad and brothers arrived there. It was part of a trip where we also got to see Niagara Falls. But between you and me… It was Cooperstown that I wanted to see… No, I needed to see. I remember waking up the morning we were supposed to head there. I couldn’t wait. We were going to Cooperstown. The anticipation. I mean, not only were we going to see the Baseball Hall of Fame, but we were going to be able to see Doubleday Field, grounds where baseball had been played since 1920.

As we pulled into Cooperstown, we parked on a side street and got out of the car and stepped onto an old brick road. And in my six-grade mind, I asked myself… “Did Babe Ruth and the other baseball greats walk on the dirt that’s under my feet?” To me, the dirt I was walking on… The brick road under my feet… The place I was standing on was holy ground.

There are many places that people might consider holy ground… a specific place designated by some person or some historical act that makes it special. And while the story of Cooperstown will always hold a special place in my heart, there’s one other story I want to look at regarding holy ground that’s found in Exodus Chapter three, verse five. Check this out:

“Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” Exodus 3:5

When it came to the holy ground of Cooperstown, New York, my family and I had to make a special trip to experience that place. And while I loved every minute of being there, I’ve never been back. I went and experienced that place once in my life. And the truth is, I’ll probably never go back.

But what we see here in Exodus three is something different. You see, if we go back a few verses in Exodus three, in verse one the Bible tells us that Moses was taking care of his father-in-law’s animals. This was something that wasn’t new to Moses. This is what he did on a regular basis. He didn’t make a special, once-in-a-lifetime trip to take care of these animals. It was his ordinary life. This is what he did each day. And it’s exactly right here where he experienced God.

What if… just maybe… we’re missing God because we think we need to be somewhere specific for us to experience God? What if we aren’t meeting God because we think we have to do or be somewhere extraordinary to hear from Him? We think we need to be in church to hear from God. We think we need to do something extraordinary to experience God. We think we need to completely change to meet God. Church is great. Doing something extraordinary is awesome. Changing who we are for the better is a good thing. But I think that…

It’s in the ordinary that God will do something extraordinary.

I think a lot of us miss God, because we aren’t expecting to meet Him in our ordinary, everyday “boring” lives. But God is here with us, everyday. And that makes everywhere we walk holy ground. The job we go to is holy ground. The soccer field our kids play on is holy ground. The mall we walk in is holy ground. The home we live in is holy ground. Because God is already there with us.

So how can we be like Moses and meet with God and experience our holy ground moment?

First, keep your eyes up. As Moses was taking care of his father-in-law’s animals, he kept his eyes up and saw something that was different. In your job, on your sideline or bleacher, at your mall, or in your home… in your everyday life, keep your eyes up so you can see where something might be different… So you can see what God wants you to see.

Secondly, keep your curiosity open. Not only did Moses see that a bush wasn’t being consumed by a fire, he went over to see it because he was curious as to why it wasn’t being burned up. There are things that you will experience in your everyday life that might not make much sense. Stay curious as to why something might be happening. Be open to “seeing the why” behind what you are experiencing… the why behind what is happening in your everyday life.

And be open to hearing and responding to God’s voice in your everyday, ordinary life. When Moses went over to see what was going on, God saw that Moses came over to the bush. What did God do? He called to Moses from within the bush. Moses could have freaked out and ran away because he thought he heard some strange voice from a bush. He could have just dismissed it to just “hearing things.” But he didn’t. Moses instead, answered the call of God and said, “Here I am.”

What if we treated the ground we walk on every day as holy ground. Imagine how our lives would change if we expected to hear from and experience God in our everyday, ordinary lives. Because it’s in the ordinary that God will do something extraordinary.

God is with you… right now… the ground you are standing on is in fact holy. It’s my prayer that you hear His voice right where you are. And I hope you respond as Moses did and say, “Here I am.”