Day 170 – April 11, 2024: Ezekiel 1-5 and Psalm 60

If I were to ask you to describe what God looks like, I would guess that you would struggle just a bit. But if I insisted that you describe what God looks like over time you would put something down on paper. You wouldn’t want God to look like something that was small or insignificant. We have a bit of a disadvantage because Jesus walked among the earth with us as God, but before Jesus walked the earth, how would you describe what God looked like? Well, Ezekiel was pretty much given that task in chapter 1 and he came up with the most terrifying, and yet the most powerful image that he could think of. Creatures with wheels and faces of humans that are powerful, take no guff, and strike terror into the hearts of those who might happen to see them.

It is no wonder that after his experience with hearing God’s word to him, to go and speak to a rebelious people, Judah and Israel, that it took him 7 days to recover stunned and in a daze (3:15). But really his task was no different from that of the other prophets, except he was called when Israel and Judah were already in exile. God speaks to him directly, as he does to the other prophets, he binds him to speak only the words of God, as he does to the other prophets, but it is placed within a context that seems a bit eccentric, to say the least. This has to be some of the worst days in the life of the people of God. But God still sends a messenger to speak His truth and to show the way.