A Burden Released

Is there a narrative that guides your goals?

I’ve always hoped that God would use my life to bring Him glory. In 1977, I wrote a story of a crusader who attempted to reopen a boarded-up church. It was the last remaining church building in his city. He had a congregation of two. They were content for him to be their teacher even if no one else joined their gathering, but he was not content. He rallied young people together to help him repair and reopen the church, but sadly, satanic people killed them all. My goal was to inspire commitment to church gatherings even if in doing so it resulted in martyrdom.

Dedication to church gatherings has been a driving force in my life. Glory to God!

However, this morning, while reading Ezekiel, the Lord revealed to me something I had not noticed before. Earlier in the book, the Israelites had strayed from God. Worse than closing churches, they were worshipping false gods in their gathering places. God gave Ezekiel words for them, but ultimately, it was God who would bring them back to Himself. Ezekiel just needed to keep his eyes on the Lord and follow the Lord’s leading.

I am not abandoning my dedication to church gatherings, but I am abandoning the lie that if I don’t gather people to God, I’m a failure. God has shown me through His prophet Ezekiel that sometimes though a man of God speaks the truth and models godly principles for others, they will not join themselves to God.

My part is to be a witness for the Gospel that saves lost souls. It is the listeners’ part to respond or to face the consequence of their non-response. On the one hand, I don’t want to shut down my effort due to a lack of response on the part of my listeners, on the other hand, I want to maintain a whole lot of passion to keep spreading God’s Word.

Below is a portion of what I read in Ezekiel this morning:

“In 25th year of our exile, at the beginning of the year, on the tenth of the month, in the 14th year after the fall of the city—on that very day the hand of the Lord was on me, and he took me there. In visions of God he took me to the land of Israel and set me on a very high mountain, on whose south side were some buildings that looked like a city. He took me there, and I saw a man whose appearance was like bronze; he was standing in the gateway with a linen cord and a measuring rod in his hand. The man said to me, ‘Son of man, look carefully and listen closely and pay attention to everything I am going to show you, for that is why you have been brought here. Tell the people of Israel everything you see.’ I saw a wall completely surrounding the temple area. The length of the measuring rod in the man’s hand was six long cubits, each of which was a cubit and a handbreadth. He measured the wall; it was one measuring rod thick and one rod high.” [1]

The vision continues with Ezekiel measuring the dimensions of the city. God rebuilt the lost city of Jerusalem. Years later, many of Ezekiel’s people did return to the Lord. This spiritual awakening came about as a result of God’s work. Ezekiel had a part in it but was not the lone crusader on whom the whole vision depended.

God has done great things through my life, but the greatest thing that He will do, namely the transformation of a fallen world back into a paradise, only He will do. I am okay with that. In fact, going forward, I just want to proclaim His Name and let Him carry the burden of the results.

[1] Ezekiel 40:1-5