Moses, the Burning Bush, and Identity

It can be tempting to reduce the Asian and Pacific Islander (API) experience to a singular narrative. But as these numbers show, the reality is far more complex. Consider this: while API individuals make up only about 7% of the U.S. population, the Asian continent itself accounts for over 50% of the world’s people. Across nearly 50 countries, more than 2,300 languages are spoken. The API community is woven together by diverse stories — stories of beauty and brokenness, triumph and struggle, rootedness and displacement.

Despite the diversity of experiences and expression, there is a heartache that connects these multifaceted Asian communities. And this is our longing to belong. Even after generations of contributions to this country, many of us are still seen as outsiders — defined by an accent, a name, or even just our appearance. This “perpetual foreigner” stereotype is not just a feeling; it is a historical reality. From the Chinese Exclusion Act and Japanese-American internment camps to the murder of Vincent Chin and the surge in anti-Asian violence during the COVID-19 pandemic, our communities have repeatedly been treated as “other.”

The Deep Longing for Belonging

In truth, belonging is a fundamental human need — the desire to be seen, heard, understood, and accepted for who we are. And this deep heartache for belonging, as well as our striving to achieve it, is nothing new to humanity. Even in Scripture, we find stories of displacement and longing to belong. 

In Exodus 2, we meet Moses — a man caught between two identities. Born a Hebrew but raised as Egyptian royalty, he never fully belonged to either world. When he tried to defend his fellow Hebrews by killing an Egyptian taskmaster, his own people rejected him (Exodus 2:14). Fleeing to Midian, he was mistaken for an Egyptian (2:19).

Moses later named his firstborn son Gershom, saying, “I have become a foreigner in a foreign land” (Exodus 2:22). His words echo the experience of many who feel caught between worlds, never fully belonging to one or the other.

As someone who arrived in the U.S. as an international student nearly two decades ago, I have felt this same displacement. I remember carrying stacks of documents whenever I traveled, feeling the weight of my visa status in every interaction. Even after becoming a U.S. citizen, the sense of being a foreigner in a foreign land lingered. 

Then, ironically enough, I soon realized I was also a foreigner in my homeland. On a visit to a Korean street market, one store owner asked me in English, “Where are you from?” When I told him I had grown up in the area in Korean, he replied, “You don’t look like you’re from here.” At that moment, I understood: I have become a stranger in my own homeland.

Many of us live in this tension — both, yet neither. It is an ache that words cannot always capture.

God’s Presence in our Heartache to Belong

So, have you wondered, “Why the burning bush?”

We often try to resolve our identity crisis by choosing one side — suppressing parts of ourselves, hoping that a single, coherent narrative will finally bring us peace. Yet, God meets us in our longing. He sees our grief. He knows the struggle of being neither here nor there. And in His presence, we find a place where we are fully known and fully accepted.

When Moses encountered the bush that burned yet was not consumed, I wonder if God was speaking directly to this heartache — the grief of being caught between two realities, yet not fully belonging anywhere. The bush was both burning brilliantly and not being consumed by the fire, holding two realities together in a way that only God’s presence can sustain.

This is the mystery of the Gospel. Through the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus — the One who was both fully human and fully God — we find salvation. God desires to restore us not in spite of our tensions, but through them. Like the burning bush, He holds together our conflicting inner realities in His presence and transforms it to the fire that shines the light and spreads warmth to the world . . . if we would only surrender our pain and wounds to him.

So, I ask you:

• In what ways has God honored your grief of unmet longing?
• In what areas of your pain do you long to be seen by God?
• In what unfulfilled desires do you wish to experience His presence?

Our longing for belonging may not be fully resolved on this side of heaven. But we serve a God who meets us in the wilderness, calls us by name, and reminds us that we are His.

And in understanding this, we can extend that same invitation to others — to walk with them in their struggles, to sit with them in their desert places, and to point them toward the One who sees them completely.

No matter where we are, no matter how displaced we feel, He holds our heart in his presence.