Day 321: From God

Ephesians 1; Ezekiel 4-5; Psalm 150

Sometimes the more I read scripture, the more I realize I don't understand, and the more I realize that I want more explanation. For instance, Paul writes: "The Spirit will make you wise and let you understand what it means to know God. My prayer is that light will flood your hearts and that you will understand the hope that was given to you when God chose you. Then you will discover the glorious blessings that will be yours together with all of God's people." Paul tells us that we get the Spirit from God when we put our faith in Jesus. Good. So what does it mean to know God? Is it different for each person? Is it something we can explain and define? And the hope, is he talking about eternal life, about salvation? He does say earlier in the chapter that before Earth was made, God chose us to be his people, and so perhaps the hope is that we will be united with him in heaven (eternal life and salvation). And what are the "glorious blessings" that all of God's people will have? We discover these through our hope. How does that happen? My prayer is that God will shine his light in my heart and give me wisdom to understand what I'm reading, not just this passage, but every word written in his beautiful Word.

God gives Ezekiel a job, a role, to demonstrate God's future abandonment of Israel and Judah. Parts of it Ezekiel doesn't want to do, and he tells God that. God's instructions go against what Ezekiel has followed in the Law and he begs God not to make him do something unclean, that he has never done before. And do you know what God did? He listened to Ezekiel and changed things up a bit! He didn't eliminate the task, but allowed Ezekiel to do it with a clear conscience, to not be worried about breaking the rules. If we look at this, as well as how Moses and Abraham interacted with God, we can see that even these men of faith disagreed with God and didn't want to do all he said. They followed through with their tasks, but they prayed for something different. I truly believe that we too can make these kinds of requests from God. Not to totally abandon the job he's set before us, but to ask for assistance or patience or something else that would help us to be more successful or comfortable. Now, I also firmly believe that God doesn't have to heed our request, but he will at least listen.   I also think this shows God is not about fixed rules or plans. He knows what he wants to accomplish and all of the ways to accomplish it. If that means changing something to care for his children, then I have no doubt he will do it.

This last psalm is really simple: Praise The Lord. That's it. We are to use what we have for unhindered, unashamed, praise to God. He deserves it and it will do our hearts, minds, and souls good, to celebrate our Creator.