Through a Glass Darkly: Volume IV Issue 1 "Out of the Darkness"

holy ground

Jonah Ling

Horeb, the mountain of God...flames of fire from within a bush.1

“Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.”2

When creating this piece, I was inspired by the grace of God despite Moses’ slowness in obeying. The story in Exodus 3 begins with a fearful runaway hiding his face from the light, yet concludes with worship to the LORD. It was not a straightforward transformation, nor a seemingly perfect one. Yet from that bush on Sinai to the shores of the Red Sea, God does not forsake his people. When the Egyptian forces are on Israel’s tail it is the LORD who intervenes - a pillar of cloud by day, a pillar of fire by night.

There was the cloud and the darkness. And it lit up the night.3

And the night passed.

Jonah is a third year architecture student at Oxford Brookes University. If you’re able to separate him from his work, he loves long walks in the countryside or the chance to appreciate some of Oxford’s breath-taking architecture.