Today’s reading: Ezekiel 4; 1 Corinthians 14
I’m impressed and challenged by Ezekiel’s heart of faithful obedience to the Lord in Ezekiel 4. God goes through a whole list of signs Ezekiel is to perform, which will not be fun or comfortable, and the only complaint he raises is about having to defile himself with unclean food, and even then, he doesn’t refuse, he just responds in alarm.
Looking at all that God is instructing Ezekiel to do, if I had been in his shoes, even if I had somehow kept my mouth shut, I would not have been ready or excited to be obedient. You want me to make a little model of Jerusalem under siege? Sure, no problem, I can make a little model. But then you want me to lay on my side and stare at it for 390 days…? Now, to be clear, as much as this reads, in English at least, like he is laying there, unmoving, for 390 days, the actual instruction here isn’t clear whether he is unmoving for 390 days, or just has to repeat this for 390 days, spending some amount of time at it each day, but other things that happen in the book, during this 390 day period, require him to be able to move, so it’s pretty clear that this is not 100% of 390 days, but some portion of his day spent like this for 390 days. Either way, I would have questions. Am I laying on a blanket or something to soften the ground? Because my hip is going to hurt… Am I under a roof for this, or just exposed to the sun and the elements? Do I have to do this near a street where dust and dirt are going to get kicked up on me all day? Etc. Plus, on top of the inconvenience, discomfort, and probable embarrassment, he had to ration his food and water, eating siege rations, instead of whatever he was used to eating.
But in all of it, Ezekiel’s only complaint, and I hesitate to even call it a complaint, is about eating his siege rations cooked over human dung. This would have made him ritually unclean, and he responds to the Lord saying that he has never eaten anything that would defile him from his youth up. God responds by letting him eat the bread cooked over cow dung instead of human dung, but other than this one thing, Ezekiel takes it all in stride. And honestly, while I obviously don’t actually know for sure, given his willingness to trust and obey the Lord so readily, I’m betting if God had said, “No, but I’m telling you to eat it cooked over human dung,” he would have done what he was told.
I am nowhere near so ready to respond in obedience when the Lord is calling me to something uncomfortable or inconvenient. I’m much more likely to find excuses, look for ways out, or try to justify why what the Lord is clearly calling me to definitely isn’t from the Lord. But I honestly want to be more like Ezekiel. I want to prize the Lord so much more highly than anything else, and I want to trust the Lord so completely, that when He calls me to something, even if I don’t understand it, and even if it’s uncomfortable or flies in the face of whatever plans I had made for myself, I just say, “Here I am Lord,” and go.
God, grow my heart of obedient trust in you…
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