I will gather you, I will breathe new life into you and I will refresh you with living water
“It is hopeless”; “We’re never going to be able to recover from this”; “I can’t see the way through”
Even if those are words you haven’t actually uttered out loud over the last 12months, perhaps you - or others you work alongside in your team - have silently listened to those thoughts surface in minds and hearts.
God is used to it when his people get to this place. Sometimes, it is ONLY when we get to this place that He can step in and transform a situation and transform us. If we cannot see the answer or the next step forwards, it means we’re finally trusting completely on God rather than being ‘god’ of our own plans.
But it’s a hard place to be in. I know. I’ve said and thought those kinds of things quite a lot more than I’m proud of over the last few months. God has had to bring me back (again!) to complete reliance on him and not on self. It’s not easy to admit we’re in that place. I know. I’m wrestling with it too.
“… All hope is gone. Our nation is lost.”
(The Voice Bible, Ezekiel 37:11)
God tells the prophet Ezekiel that this is what He has been hearing from His people for some time. His people that have been scattered and are in (what will be) a 70-year captivity in Babylon (wow! 70 years – I’ve found 12 months of a small degree of loss of freedom excruciating!)
Until this point, Ezekiel – God’s prophet and priest to His people - has had the unenviable role of warning them that they need to change. No encouraging Sunday sermons from this prophet/priest – just a consistent message that they were ignoring God. And then political and national events transpired, and God’s people find themselves in a place of hopelessness and pain. And from there they cried out to God. Sound familiar? I don’t think for a moment, that this Covid pandemic has been sent by God. But I do hear - as national and global events continue to unfold – that God’s people are struggling with pain.
Hear what God says to them then. His words bring life in their crisis and are relevant to us in ours. His words in Ezekiel Ch34 talk of God as our good shepherd. “I will go out searching for my sheep. I will find them wherever they are, and I will look after them”. I will be their rescuer. No matter where they have scattered, I will go to find them”. There is so much more in that chapter that reminds God’s people how much he loves and cares for them. Ultimately, He’s pointing forwards to the fulfilment of the depth of that love through Jesus. But in their ‘now’ place they hear – through Ezekiel - God will shepherd you.
Dive forwards into chapter 47 and we see a wonderful vision given to Ezekiel of the future God has in store for the people who love him. A river of life flowing from God as its source, bringing life to his creation, with continual provision. In prophetic form – a river of life transforming whatever it touches, and sustaining trees bearing fruit for food and leaves for healing. Again, encouragement ‘now’ for his people in pain. And also a prophetic pointer to the fullness of life Jesus brings and that will be experienced in totality, when we see God face to face for eternity.
In chapter 34 - as a direct response to His people’s cries of hopelessness in their captivity, God says “Pay attention my people. I am going to bring you back to life. I will carry you back to your land. I will breathe my Spirit into you and you will be alive once again. I will place you back in your own land. After that you will know I am the Eternal One and I have done what I said I would do”
A picture of an army in that chapter- miraculously raised to life by the Spirit of God - spoke volumes to a people defeated through war, scattered and feeling oppressed. I find myself wondering what picture of the many prophetic pictures given to us throughout Scripture, do we most need to sit within right now. What speaks most to our churches today? Pictures of healing? Of gathering in community again as we emerge out of lockdown tentatively and apprehensively perhaps? Or pictures of a scattered church shod with the armour of the Lord walking into our communities with the gospel of peace.
We - his people today, aren’t really that different from God’s people before us. If we’re honest it’s easy to judge them a little as their failings are unpacked in scripture for us to learn from. The cycle is so familiar through the ages. We try to manage without God. Then at some point, we find ourselves in a place of desperation and cry out as we know we need Him. And God, ever loving and ever faithful meets us.
God never changes. He is always at work bringing life and hope. When God speaks to his people, it is always to heal, restore and to bring them into closer relationship with Him.
What picture from these Ezekiel chapters do you need to find yourself in and perhaps sit within awhile today? God shepherding you? God breathing new life into you? God raising you up and equipping you for battle? God providing for you?
Sit and imagine which prophetic picture you need to hear the Lord speak through. Our loving Father is always listening and ready to comfort when his children cry out from a place of desperation. It’s who He is and He never changes. And as you sit with God, I pray that you hear the encouragement you need from Him today.
Jules Morgan
Chair of the UCAN board
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