"Also the word of the Lord came unto me, saying,
Son of man, behold, I take away from thee the desire of thine eyes with a stroke: yet neither shalt thou mourn nor weep, neither shall thy tears run down.
Forbear to cry, make no mourning for the dead, bind the tire of thine head upon thee, and put on thy shoes upon thy feet, and cover not thy lips, and eat not the bread of men.
So I spake unto the people in the morning: and at even my wife died; and I did in the morning as I was commanded.
And the people said unto me, Wilt thou not tell us what these things are to us, that thou doest so?"
Ezekiel 24:15-19
Every time I read this story I think about how hard it would be to be the prophet in this circumstance. Even with warning, how hard must it have been for him to not be able to mourn his wife. The Lord sustained him though, and made him able. The reason the Lord asked him to do this is partly symbolic. There are many stories of prophets doing things in their own lives that taught a symbolic message about the spiritual reality around them, and I think that is a large part of this. The other part is in the last verse of this selection where the people ask him why.
The time when people are most receptive and teachable is when they have a question about something. It's a concept called inquiry learning (or inquiry-based learning) if you want to look it up, but the basic idea is exactly what God is doing here... triggering the curiosity of the people so that they are receptive to the message of the prophet. They saw the prophet acting differently from the way they expected him to act, and they wanted to know why.
I think that God does similar things in our lives, not to burden or punish us, but to get us to really stop and evaluate our lives, to generate some curiosity and inquisitiveness, and to spark some actual investment in finding answers. Those are the times that we learn the most and grow the most, because we are asking and reaching out and willing to listen. By the same token, God wants us to be ready when others have questions. He wants us to "be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you" (1 Peter 3:15).
Today, let's try to get ourselves into a learning and teaching mindset, and think about what we know and what we want to know about the gospel. God is more than willing to teach us, if we really want to find out. And if we are ready, he will bless us with situations where we can also help answer the questions of others. Either way, let's be inquisitive and seek answers from the only pure source. :)
Son of man, behold, I take away from thee the desire of thine eyes with a stroke: yet neither shalt thou mourn nor weep, neither shall thy tears run down.
Forbear to cry, make no mourning for the dead, bind the tire of thine head upon thee, and put on thy shoes upon thy feet, and cover not thy lips, and eat not the bread of men.
So I spake unto the people in the morning: and at even my wife died; and I did in the morning as I was commanded.
And the people said unto me, Wilt thou not tell us what these things are to us, that thou doest so?"
Ezekiel 24:15-19
Every time I read this story I think about how hard it would be to be the prophet in this circumstance. Even with warning, how hard must it have been for him to not be able to mourn his wife. The Lord sustained him though, and made him able. The reason the Lord asked him to do this is partly symbolic. There are many stories of prophets doing things in their own lives that taught a symbolic message about the spiritual reality around them, and I think that is a large part of this. The other part is in the last verse of this selection where the people ask him why.
The time when people are most receptive and teachable is when they have a question about something. It's a concept called inquiry learning (or inquiry-based learning) if you want to look it up, but the basic idea is exactly what God is doing here... triggering the curiosity of the people so that they are receptive to the message of the prophet. They saw the prophet acting differently from the way they expected him to act, and they wanted to know why.
I think that God does similar things in our lives, not to burden or punish us, but to get us to really stop and evaluate our lives, to generate some curiosity and inquisitiveness, and to spark some actual investment in finding answers. Those are the times that we learn the most and grow the most, because we are asking and reaching out and willing to listen. By the same token, God wants us to be ready when others have questions. He wants us to "be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you" (1 Peter 3:15).
Today, let's try to get ourselves into a learning and teaching mindset, and think about what we know and what we want to know about the gospel. God is more than willing to teach us, if we really want to find out. And if we are ready, he will bless us with situations where we can also help answer the questions of others. Either way, let's be inquisitive and seek answers from the only pure source. :)
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