I Want You To Think Deeply

I Want You to Think Deeply

For Ezekiel

I can't pin you down.

I never know where you are

or where you have been.

Are you chained at home

or are you by the river?

In which land do you reside?

When your mouth opened

was it agony to see

Jerusalem fall?

Of the coming death

your obedience kept you

safely in His arms

But thinking deeply

I know you felt misery

and terrible loss.

How many times did angels

carry you from place to place

on rustling wings?

Did you really lay

400* days in the dirt,

or was it a dream?

Did it hurt your heart,

this message of destruction

and devastation?

Did it feel too late?

Finally to speak out loud

drowned out by lament?

Your message to bear,

small remnant God made you

responsible for.

So heavy the words

you made sink into your heart

yet you must say them.

“The sovererign Lord says:

You are rebellious people.

Choose to hear, or don't.”

Israel beckons,

and they will not believe though

you're one of their own.

Yet you are gifted.

For you hold Israels blueprint

for restoration.

The great directors

conduit for instruction

on how to rebuild.

“Look and listen for

that is why you've been brought here,

tell them what you see.”(1)

You who've seen it fall,

who've spoken to the righteous,

now see it restored.

“And the name of the city from that time on will be ‘The Lord is There’.”(2)

*In actuality, God requires him to lie on the ground for 390 days before turning to face the other direction for 40 days making a total of 430 days. I have simplified the number to match the meter of the poem.

1. Ezikiel 40:4
2. Ezekiel 48:35

My prayer: Lord: I want to think deeply, to let your words sink into my heart. To be unafraid when I don't know where I am, because all that time, like Ezekiel, I was with you. I want to be obedient whether I am chained, crushed in sorrow, or lying in the mud. I want to be brave when no one believes me, when I can see the bloody road ahead, when I feel like you are wrong. I want to remember that only you know the purpose and the reason and that you will somehow set me down there, at the right time, in the right place, with the right words. Lord, I will close my mouth and let your words sink into my heart.