Called To Follow Christ
Ezekiel was training his whole life to become a priest and then the Israelites were exiled to Babylon and God called him to be a prophet. All that he had learned and trained for was no longer an option. He was exiled along with his fellow Israelites. He could no longer be a priest in the way that he was trained to be. At this point most of us would lament the loss and find it hard not to feel forsaken by God. God removed all the externals and yet all his training, was still vital to the role that God was placing him in.
I have always felt that having strong faith meant holding tightly to what I believe God will do and steadfastly push onward with my plans. I am rethinking this and wondering if it is best not to hold on so tightly to my beliefs, plans and agendas. Of course we have to live and make a living and work and provide for our families, and that requires plans and moving in a direction we think is best. But when my plans become the primary purpose of my life, rather than being just the means in which I reflect God’s image and love my neighbor, then I am getting things mixed up.
In this same way, it is also dangerous to hold too tightly to my theology. Up to this point, Ezekiel’s only way of experiencing God was in the temple in Jerusalem. Through being exiled, God is revealing to Ezekiel that He has no boundaries. Ezekiel has to learn to see God as not living in temples. When our experience of God does not match up with our theology, we tend to try to make the experience fit our theology. It is in those moments that God asks of us, as he is doing with Ezekiel here, to see him outside our beliefs. If we grew up seeing the church as holy and where God lives, perhaps he asks us to see him in nature, or in our neighbor, the homeless, or in a bar. Conversely, if we tend to find God when we are alone in nature, perhaps He asks us to see Him in community, religion and institutions.
Though God addresses the abominations that occurred in His temple and they are connected to the exile that is taking place, it is not because God made the temple holy and now He can no longer abide there. God chose to leave the temple and be with his children in exile. God has no boundaries and as Paul says to the Athenians, “He does not live in temples built by human hands.”(Acts 17:24). God left the temple for our good. God declared the temple to be a holy space, not for Him but for us.
Ezekiel looked forward to being a priest as any of us look forward to the career we hope to have someday. The life that Ezekiel was building was now destroyed. That’s a lot for any of us to process. Imagine showing up to work one day and your workplace has been destroyed and you are now a captive slave of a foreign government. Ezekiel, through no fault of his own, was placed in exile with his fellow Israelites to be used for a purpose greater than what he thought he was training for. All the externals of his training have been destroyed, but the internals have been untouched. It is what was built internally that he now has to draw upon to thrive in this new role that God has placed him in.
We can all relate because life is always changing and rarely goes as planned for any of us. Whatever our occupation, our calling as christians is that we are to be priests(1Peter 2:9) ministering to the world we live in. There is no formal training plan for that. The best we can do is to look at the needs around us and invest ourselves fully in whatever process shapes us to best meet those needs. Reading, praying, fasting, meditating, are the disciplines that prepare us for whatever God throws our way, but they are not our calling. We would all love for God’s plan to be our plan but that is never the case. Can we learn to live lives with a plan to serve God in a way that excites us while holding on to that plan loosely, letting God direct us to places we wouldn’t choose to go? Jesus, who is both priest and prophet, calls us to deny ourselves and pick up our crosses and follow Him. To lose our lives that we may find them. When our lives don’t go as planned, can we learn to look at it as God helping us to lose our life so that we may find it?
This is really good and spooky (in the best Spirit-led way) in how our thoughts tracked. I like thinking about Ezekiel’s change from priest to prophet- had not thought about that before. Very good.
I, like many people grew up believing the false assumption that faith in God meant I believed He existed and, if I became His child my life would be all good, would be the way I wanted or planned. That I would get the things I asked for as long as I “followed His rules”. When the experiences of my life showed me the opposite I would question my faith, question my Gods goodness. It wasn’t until the latest experience in my life happened that I came to realize that faith in God, to me, means believing that no matter what life throws at me or no matter what I created by my own poor choices, that faith in God is not just believing He’s out there but believing He will provide me the strength I need to “weather the storms” of this life. And at the same time grow from them as I allow Him to be my refuge my strength, as I lean into what He is doing within me during the storms. That to me is the “good” He does for me…to help me become my highest form(in my spirit), so that I can be more useful to do His will for my life…not my will for my life. This requires me to give up my will(die to my Self) which is something I have to attempt to do day be day, moment by moment, choice by choice. This takes great intention on my part, it takes loving Him on my part, it takes me being still sometimes and listening (discernment of His voice) to Him which i experience not only in my thoughts but in my heart and soul. The hearing of His voice comes in more than one way but if I don’t try to discern it I will never know it.
You shared many great points/insights and I thank you.