Ezekiel 1 -- What Am I Hearing?

As this book opened, I was reminded of a prisoner of war, scratching a mark in the walls of his prison cell as he tried to keep up with the passing of time in captivity – “the fifth day of the month of the fifth year that King Jehoiachin had been a prisoner.”  For five YEARS Ezekiel had been away from home – Jerusalem. He was being held in enemy territory – Babylon – modern day Iraq.  Even the king had been taken captive, and Ezekiel had no word on the condition of the capital.

But in the middle of this war, God showed up.  He had a message for His wayward people that Ezekiel is about to receive.  God hadn’t forgotten them.  Instead, He was retraining them to trust Him again and to follow His commands.  In this first chapter, Ezekiel records his visions of God, and they are so far beyond his ability to describe and our ability to comprehend that what he tells us about what he saw when the sky opened sounds incredulous.  Two things seemed to be pounding his subconscious:  These were living creatures he was seeing, and they were Spirit-led and Spirit-directed.  God was directing them, not aliens (as some might suggest).  And if God was in control, Ezekiel had nothing to fear.

Father, it feels like our country is in captivity now – not off in some foreign land as Ezekiel found himself, but perhaps taken by some occupying force.  Our minds have trouble comprehending that it is actually happening, but our hearts tell us otherwise.  Like Ezekiel, I may not understand what is going on, but I can take a lesson from other times when I haven’t understood.  I simply say, “I trust You, God.”

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford