Ezekiel 24-26; Psalm 125
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“God’s Message came to me: ‘Son of man, I’m about to take from you
the delight of your life—a real blow, I know. But, please, no tears.
Keep your grief to yourself.
No public mourning. Get
dressed as usual and go about your work—none of the usual funeral
rituals.’ I preached to the people
in the morning. That evening my
wife died.” (Ezekiel 24:15-17)
We’ve read before how God used the prophets and real visual
examples from their lives to teach the Israelites and show them what is going
to happen. This one though … is
rough. Ezekiel loses his wife, the
delight of his life. Not only
that, but he couldn’t mourn her death.
It is hard to understand how God would ask this of Ezekiel.
When something is kind of hard to swallow in the Bible I go back
to what I’ve learned about the character of God. I remember first, His ways are higher than my ways … I’m not
always going to understand why and how He does certain things. I remember that God is powerful, God is
just, God is good and merciful, He is faithful. He does not delight in punishing; He does delight in
restoration. He cares deeply for
those who experience injustice.
And more than anything … something so simple, yet means absolutely
everything … God loves. He loves
His creation and He loves people more than anything. It says in the Bible that He watches over and takes care of the
sparrow and that we are worth far more in His eyes, so how much more does He
watch over and take care of us.
This was a real blow to Ezekiel. God knew that.
He knew He was asking something pretty tough of Ezekiel, but when God
asks us to do something, He gives us the strength to do it. How would Ezekiel have been able to get
through that if God wasn’t there holding him up? Psalm 125 says, “Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount
Zion, which cannot be shaken but endures forever.”
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