When God passes by, He has a lot to undo and do. Several thousand messages are running through our veins. And several thousand are riding upon the atmosphere. Most, and I mean most, of these are against the Creator. Very few agree with His heart. And we are very vulnerable to all of these.
It takes dedication. It takes care. It takes personal knowledge and skill to nurture an infant life. It takes even more knowledge and skill to nurture a life that has been alienated from you. There are many questions about your intentions. There are many questions about God’s intention. Since Humanities cord has been cut from the Divine… .since long ago, we became a race and government of our own… .we have no personal knowledge of His heart. We do not personally know His good intentions. Therefore, we are unsure. We are unsure of the Creator. Who is He anyway?
It takes skillful moments, months of dedication, years of planning. The Divine is careful and concise in His cause to woo us home. He gathers up an Infant of Ezekiel and washes, bandages, medicates and swaddles. He nurtures. He personally attends to growth. He waits and at just the right moment of a Human heart’s history, He offers mature love. He becomes a Spouse, a covenanted partner. Then He gives. He gives it ALL. All that He thinks, feels and knows.
The Lord God has nurtured a Life, not for servitude, but for friendship.
Sadly, despite all of this bestowed affection, the infant of Ezekiel 16 shifts her course. She doesn’t remain in the protective and provisional garden of His love. “But you trusted in your beauty and played the whore because of your renown and lavished your whorings on any passerby; your beauty became his,” Ezekiel 16:15. Something motivates the young maiden to seek affections from another source. She works skillfully to attract the eye of other lovers whom she supposes could give her something she is searching for. “You took some of your garments and made for yourself colorful shrines, and on them played the whore. …you also took your beautiful jewels of my gold and of my silver, which I had given you, and made for yourself images of men, with them you played the whore. And you took your embroidered garments to cover them, and set my oil and my incense before them. Also my bread that I gave you – I fed you fine flour and oil and honey – you set before them for a pleasing aroma. …and you took your sons and your daughters, whom you had borne to me, and these you sacrificed to them to be devoured…” Ezekiel 16:16-20.
What, I ask you, is she looking for? Well… .she is looking for answers. Who am I? Who are You? Why was I left there? What was my past and what will be my future? Explain these thoughts. Explain these feelings. Explain my heart’s condition. Explain Yourself. Explain!
The heart of the Amorite and the Hittite did not know the heart of God. They were foreigners. Since Eden, we are foreigners. We have many questions about existence and many battles for survival. They run through our veins and swirl about our heads. We have many choices in the midst of them. The most important of all: Will we believe God’s heart? Will we trust His intentions?
Although this certainly is the story of a maiden gone crooked in her path, it is more dramatically the story of God intervening in an abandoned life. Her life had been thrown into a crooked path from birth. ….and not by her own will. She had lost so many things before God passed by. And so it is with Humanity. From birth, we have been thrown into a crooked world. Without any real understanding of our situation, we are still keenly aware of the many conforming contributors. Although God comes along with His loving and healing intervention, many of us, like the maiden, are conformed instead by the pressures of this world. We choose to believe the many lies of our ancestors and peers and environments. And we simply forget that God created us good, saw us abused and abandoned, loved what He saw and longed to restore us.
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