Day 60
Ezekiel 13-23
I must admit that I've read this days reading twice now and am still struggling to find some words of application or insight. I so want to move on in the readings to get past all this death and destruction, but I want to stay long enough to get some sort of understanding....
The Lord is very serious about those who do not follow his commands. He is very serious about the death and destruction that follow those who do not follow Him. In Ezekiel 21:18-19 it says, "Son of man, mark out two roads for the sword of the king of Babylon to take, both starting from the same country. Make a signpost where the road branches off to the city."
Reading that verse made me think of this Lewis Carroll quote from Alice in Wonderland:
"Alice came to a fork in the road. "Which road do I take?' she asked.
'Where do you want to go?' responded the Cheshire Cat.
'I don't know,' Alice answered.
'Then,' said the Cat, 'it doesn't matter."
Oh, how it matters what road you take, as the Jews of that day found out. I don't think they really thought how much it indeed did matter what road they chose to veer off on! It matters to us, in our day, as we are finding out. We each have a choice to make in that fork in the road of our daily lives in deciding which way to go. God's way, or our way? In which choice we make. To follow obedience or disobedience?
The Jews of that day paid a very hefty price for the wrong choices they made. All they had to do was follow God's voice, but instead they followed the voices of false prophets.
As God has done time and time again in all these chapters of destruction, he offers hope. That when we choose the wrong road, there is grace and mercy and an opportunity to repent for going down it, and a new heart and a new spirit in choosing this time to go down the right road.
Ezekiel 18:30 says, "Therefore, O house of Israel, I will judge you, each one according to his ways, declares the Sovereign Lord. Repent! Turn away from all your offenses; then sin will not be your downfall. Rid yourselves of all the offenses you have committed, and get a new heart and a new spirit. Why will you die, O house of Israel? For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Sovereign Lord. Repent and live!"
Ezekiel 16:59-60 offers me such HOPEISM as I too have been at that fork in the road where many times I have chosen the wrong path...
This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I will deal with you as you deserve, because you have despised my oath by breaking the covenant. Yet I will remember the covenant I made with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish an everlasting covenant with you.
When the Cheshire Cat asks me where I want to go, I will know my answer ---
To everlasting...
I know just who I must follow to get me there.
And it ain't the cat.
