Remember how He told Ezekiel to play with toys and lay down for over a year? That seemed just plain absurd. I would think there would be a more effective (and time efficient) way to get a point across to a bull-headed people.
But then God does something awful to Ezekiel in chapter 24.
The word of the LORD came to me: "Son of man, with one blow I am about to take away from you the delight of your eyes. Yet do not lament or weep or shed any tears. Groan quietly; do not mourn for the dead. Keep your turban fastened and your sandals on your feet; do not cover the lower part of your face or eat the curstomary food of mourners.Know what happened next?
Ezekiel's wife died.
The delight of his eyes. His lover, his favorite person on the planet. The one he loved more than life itself.
The delight of his eyes.
As if to pour salt on the wound, God also told him to pretend like nothing had happened. Don't cry, don't be sad. Don't go to the funeral, and keep your jeans on instead of dressing in the traditional black. Don't accept any meals that your friends bring by the house. Carry on with your life as though your heart weren't just shredded right out of your chest.
And why did God do all this? What was His purpose? To tell the people that the sanctuary they so delighted in would be destroyed, along with their sons and daughters. And to tell them that they would do as Ezekiel had done - they would not mourn.
Seriously? God created this woman to grow up and fall in love with this prophet, to be his joy...just to kill her so He could tell the people their sanctuary would be destroyed??
I don't like it.
It doesn't seem fair. It doesn't seem like the best way to illustrate a message. And I don't get it.
Ezekiel was a better person than me. He did as he was told and did not so much as shed a tear. It's days later and I still can't make sense of this story and why God decided that was the best way. I can't even find a lesson to pull from this passage to apply to life. But one question remains.
If God does this to me, if He takes away the delight of my eyes, destroys my life, brings me to ruin for reasons that don't seem to make sense or seem worthwhile...
Will I trust Him?
1 comment:
Seems Ezekiel had reached the point where there was nothing else. He could say as the disciples did, "to whom shall we go?" (John 6)
When He is enough, then can say yes, we'll trust Him. As long as our hope is in any other thing, even a little bit, and even in something He's given, we won't.
Would I trust Him? ...
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