Ezequiel 24-48
Let me set the context for this posting. I just arrived in Australia for a business trip. A grueling 24 travel experience to get here... but I'm here safely. It seems no matter when I travel some of my best "thinking time" comes on the plane as I'm aware that I'm apart from my family and will not be rejoining them soon. It causes me to be self-reflective and sometimes somewhat morose. This travel experience was no different.
Then I turned to the Bible to for comfort and wisdom as I pursued the reading for these days....
Wrong passages to look for comfort from. Ezequiel receives visions and pronounces judgement on all of Israels enemies and neighbors. Their waywardness and treatment of the nation of Israel have caused God to pronounce their demise. Yet toward the end of Ezequiel I see the promises toward Israel. Despite their wickedness and waywardness, God still promises to bring them back together and to protect them despite their past. He calls them - through Ezequiel - back to their roots... the division of the land, the calling of Levites as priests, instructions for the temple... etc.
What I gain from this is the steadfastness of our Creator. No matter where we may go, He is always there. He never left Israel. They moved. Their suffering and depravity was a result of their choices. Not God's will. Everything He did, he did with the expressed purposes of bringing them back to Him. Is it not the same today? When we feel afraid or are experiencing suffering is it because we've moved away from God? And perhaps it is because no matter what, He is acting - even in the midst of suffering - to move closer to him.
So While I'm now about 9000 miles from home - on the other side of the earth from my family I have moved. But God has not. As my heart aches to be reunited with my family this momentary suffering is enabling me to get closer to God to feel his presence in a way that I haven't been able to in the past few weeks. On the plane I actually shed some tears as I was reading this. Realizing that - though my suffering wasn't the same as the suffering that Israel went through - it is still real and God is still talking to me. I began talking a back to Him and what do you know... I feel his presence again. Even 9000 miles from "home." Our God is a great big God who cares for us in itty bitty ways!
Let me set the context for this posting. I just arrived in Australia for a business trip. A grueling 24 travel experience to get here... but I'm here safely. It seems no matter when I travel some of my best "thinking time" comes on the plane as I'm aware that I'm apart from my family and will not be rejoining them soon. It causes me to be self-reflective and sometimes somewhat morose. This travel experience was no different.
Then I turned to the Bible to for comfort and wisdom as I pursued the reading for these days....
Wrong passages to look for comfort from. Ezequiel receives visions and pronounces judgement on all of Israels enemies and neighbors. Their waywardness and treatment of the nation of Israel have caused God to pronounce their demise. Yet toward the end of Ezequiel I see the promises toward Israel. Despite their wickedness and waywardness, God still promises to bring them back together and to protect them despite their past. He calls them - through Ezequiel - back to their roots... the division of the land, the calling of Levites as priests, instructions for the temple... etc.
What I gain from this is the steadfastness of our Creator. No matter where we may go, He is always there. He never left Israel. They moved. Their suffering and depravity was a result of their choices. Not God's will. Everything He did, he did with the expressed purposes of bringing them back to Him. Is it not the same today? When we feel afraid or are experiencing suffering is it because we've moved away from God? And perhaps it is because no matter what, He is acting - even in the midst of suffering - to move closer to him.
So While I'm now about 9000 miles from home - on the other side of the earth from my family I have moved. But God has not. As my heart aches to be reunited with my family this momentary suffering is enabling me to get closer to God to feel his presence in a way that I haven't been able to in the past few weeks. On the plane I actually shed some tears as I was reading this. Realizing that - though my suffering wasn't the same as the suffering that Israel went through - it is still real and God is still talking to me. I began talking a back to Him and what do you know... I feel his presence again. Even 9000 miles from "home." Our God is a great big God who cares for us in itty bitty ways!
