The Long Plan

As we read the book of Ezekiel, it almost seems that Ezekiel went to sleep in Jerusalem and woke up the next morning "among the exiles by the river Chebar...in the land of the Chaldeans..."  (Ezekiel 1:1, 3).  To get into the writing makes it a plausible explanation, but it is also likely that he traveled with those exiles along that difficult road and one day he found himself there with them.   Perhaps, how he got there is not as important as being there.  While he is regarded as a major prophet in Israel's history, there is no moment of calling as in the case with Isaiah and Jeremiah.    

What is put out there for us to see is the way God re-directed this man's ministry in a time of great difficulty.  Ezekiel had spent his life preparing for service in the Temple of Jerusalem.  The first verse reference to the thirtieth year speaks of him coming to an age where the preparation or apprenticeship was past and he was ready to step into leadership as a properly credentialed priest.  Throughout all those years he had seen his future as one working among the holy stuff of the Temple and serving God in that place so special in Israel's life.  Suddenly all that changed.  As Ezekiel appears by the river Chebar, he is no longer a priest, but a prophet.  He is away from smelling the incense of the Temple to a place filled with the smell of the earth and an exiled people.    

Most of us go kicking and screaming when God begins to change the circumstances of our service to Him.  It is not easy for us to turn lose of our dreams of how God is going to use us for the reality of how He wants to use us.  Our dreams do not always match His purposes.  And, what is also true is that while His purposes may seem to be changing as the years go along, those purposes have always been in place.  They have only been invisible to us as we live out the present moment of our life.  Instead of struggling against the new God is leading us toward, it makes more sense to live with the faith and the grace that has taken us thus far.  God's plan is always greater and longer than we can see as we look ahead.