Every Detail Is Important

Ezekiel 4:1-3 - "Now, son of man, take a clay tablet, put it in front of you and draw the city of Jerusalem on it.  Then lay siege to it: Erect siege works against it, build a ramp up to it, set up camps against it and put battering rams around it.  Then take an iron pan, place it as an iron wall between you and the city and turn your face toward it. It will be under siege, and you shall besiege it. This will be a sign to the house of Israel.

 

Ezekiel’s first recorded task involved following a huge number of specific details. God had prepared for the people an object lesson…a complete visual that was symbolic of the judgment he was bringing on Israel and Judah. For over a year…Ezekiel was given a task that was very detailed and explicit.

 

Every detail… from the way he arranged the brick representing the city… the number of days he must lay on a specific side in his rest… the ingredients in his bread…..and the way he cooked it…was important to show the people. Each thing he was asked to do was meant to help them understand the seriousness of their sin.  God even assisted Ezekiel with the tasks he already knew would be hard for him to complete.

 

God sometimes asks us to do things in a certain way. It may seem silly or out of place at times….but he has a purpose in everything he asks us to do. The thing he asks of us may be hard…but God will send that spirit to help and give us strength. Whether the assignment is full of many small details…or one large thing…God has a reason for asking us to complete it. The lesson may not even be for us…but the people around us that watch us do what seems silly to them.

 

I needed this lesson once again this morning….a reminder that I try to rewrite the tasks that God has given me way too many times.  I am not sure that I even hear God’s specific details some days because I let the world and what seems politically correct make my public decisions. I forget so many times that the world was not created for  me…but I was created to help the world.

 

Father…thank you for the reminder that you have planned a specific way for me to do things.  Forgive me for the times that I have tried to rewrite your plan for me and messed up the lesson you may have planned for me and the others that would see me follow it. Help me to listen more closely and ask for the strength to complete whatever you ask me to do …exactly the way you have written it. Amen.