Ezekiel 20:3 -- On Inquiring of the Lord

"Son of man, speak unto the elders of Israel, and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God; Are ye come to inquire of me? As I live, saith the Lord God, I will not be inquired of by you."
Ezekiel 20:3

Out of context, this verse kind of makes it seem as though the Lord is intolerant of questions, and doesn't want people inquiring about his will.  Reading the chapter though, and putting it into the context of the other things that the Lord says on the subject, I think that our minds, hearts, and intentions are what is at issue here, and not just asking questions.

God loves us and wants us to grow and learn from him, and in that context he welcomes questions... he wants us to be curious about the world and the things in it and to ask him about things and to figure out how things fit together within his creations.

What gets us into trouble often is when we treat God as though he were a fallible human and we question his decisions.  The questions that he isn't going to listen to are the prideful ones that we ask, saying in essence "Hey, God, I think you got this one wrong, because *I* would have done it better.  You obviously screwed up and don't actually love or care about anyone involved--care to try to justify yourself?"

God isn't going to answer that kind of question because our own pride is getting in the way.  Instead of asking God to help us understand his reasoning (which he is willing to do) so that we can learn and come to peace with the decision, we are instead assuming that he is wrong, and asking him to prove himself--and there is no answer to that but enough patient silence so that we can realize our error and humble ourselves enough to reframe the question.  Otherwise we won't be able to hear an answer anyway over the sound of our own egos.

Today, let's not be scared of inquiring of the Lord, but let's instead avoid assuming that God is wrong.  He isn't... and when we have a problem with his decisions, then we need to figure out how *we're* wrong, or how our perspective needs to be informed further to see the whole picture.  Let's work on having enough faith to remember that God knows what he is doing, and as we do so, then we'll be able to be in tune enough with the Spirit to hear the answers to our questions.