Raspberry Iced M

As I continue to study God’s Word, I understand that what I once only recognized as non-fictional words on a page are – in reality – real life instructions for how we should be living our lives today. The Bible isn’t just a history book. It’s a handbook.

I finished Jeremiah and moved onto Ezekiel. I am not quite finished with it, but I’ll recap what I’ve studied so far.

Jeremiah and Ezekiel were both prophets, and both of these Books recall the same events – just from different perspectives. While Jeremiah delivered God’s messages from inside Judah/Jerusalem prior to and during the nation’s collapse, Ezekiel’s story is told to people who were already displaced in Babylon.

As a reader, I needed both. If I had only read Jeremiah, I’d have only understood the weight of warning. If I had only read Ezekiel, I’d have only understood the structure of judgment and hope. But together, I got a full, emotional, spiritual picture.

I don’t know if I should admit this, and perhaps someone more “woke” than me will correct me, but I don’t believe that everything that happens to us is God’s will. While we generally, as a society, subscribe to the idea of fate and that “all things happen for a reason,” that is only partially true, in my opinion. Some things happen because, as my dad says, “We ain’t got the sense God gave a goose.”

God gave His people free will, and they used it so haphazardly that poor leadership, pride, and idolatry broke down the very foundation upon which God had built them. God didn’t “want” two nations. It was not His “will” that His people divide into separate nations. He also didn’t want His people to worship other gods or be so selfish/prideful or stray so far from what they knew was truth.

But if God had forced Israel to remain unified after Solomon died…

If He had spared Judah from ruin after they had wandered…

If He had slapped wrists but kept the foundation of His people intact instead of allowing every consequence to play out fully…

…then restoration would not have been as meaningful.

Jeremiah revealed that God takes sin and its consequences seriously. But Ezekiel revealed that God is committed to restoration beyond what people deserve.

But here’s the clincher – transformation has to happen *before* restoration can happen. And because we are so hard-headed and set in our ways, our “truths,” our feelings, I think God knows that sometimes He has to let us do it wrong and fall apart before we reach a place so desperate that our foundations are completely destroyed. And that’s where He does His best work.

When my kids were little, if they misbehaved around their Mamaw, she would have them put their noses in a corner while she talked to them about respect, obedience, etc. And when they’d make comments to me about how silly that punishment was, I’d explain to them that the “corner” was the punishment, but the punishment wasn’t the only purpose of the corner. The corner (1) removed the kids from the setting of the behavior, so as to eliminate the temptation to continue that behavior; and (2) staring into a blank wall, with no distractions, no toys, no tv, gave the kids time to think and reflect on what they’d done wrong.

So God put Judah’s nose in the corner. He removed them from the place where the disobedience occurred. And He stripped them of everything so that all they had left was time to reflect and time to talk to Him. Exile was not just “punishment.” It was a place of reflection and work. God didn’t wait until Judah wasn’t broken anymore. God’s miracle was found while His people were still suffering. “I will gather you…I will cleanse you…I will give you a new heart…”

And He killed so many birds with that stone. Not only did He keep His covenant with His people, but He showed other nations who He was – the One, True God. And on top of that, the two nations were, once again, united as one (Ezekiel Chapter 37), as God had always intended. Every consequence…every fracture…rebuilt under one, stronger foundation, so that His people, after years of division and disobedience and wandering, were made completely whole.

As I have struggled to understand why I am in this particular season…as I have prayed to God for (and been actively denied) deliverance…and even as I have expressed anger/frustration toward Him for “allowing” the loneliness, the shame, the tears…the Holy Spirit has continued to (1) sit with me; (2) comfort me; and (3) speak the same message – “The miracle you seek lies inside the work you are doing.”

And it’s probably not just coincidence that I’ve been reading about how Judah – in all of its disobedience and wandering – had to do the same work…not the kind of work where they had to try harder or do more, but the kind of work that required a different mindset – total surrender, total commitment, and total obedience. And it was in that surrender, commitment and obedience that God restored them and gave them back even more than they lost.

The Book of Ezekiel has reminded me that putting metaphorical duct tape on our own destructive patterns will only work for so long. The Lord wants us to be transformed, from the inside out, and from the bottom up, in such a way that even other people will see Him in us. And in the same way Judah experienced God in the middle of consequence, true transformation happens when our foundations are broken.

By whatever means necessary, the Lord wants us to be whole, *especially* if we have specifically prayed for it like I have. And if making us whole requires Him to “put us in the corner” or to use a jackhammer on our foundations or to strip us of all tangible comforts, then that’s exactly what He’ll do – not because He wants us to hurt, but because doing all of those things puts us in a state of vulnerability necessary for transformation.

If you are in your transformation season – if you are lonely, if you are hurting, if you are in your feels, if you are learning and enduring – hang on. He didn’t abandon you. Restoration is coming.