Ezekiel 27:27
Most of us have caught ourselves believing that one more purchase, one more upgrade, one more win would finally settle something restless inside us. It never quite does. But we keep trying anyway.
Continue reading “What Goes Down with the Ship”
Ezekiel 22:30
A grapevine doesn’t have many uses if it stops producing grapes. You can’t even carve a decent peg from it. Ezekiel makes that point early in his prophecy. A vine that bears no fruit has failed the one thing it was made for.
Continue reading “The Gap No One Filled”
Ezekiel 20:8
Most of us have sat down at some point and written out what we’re grateful for. And if we’re honest, it’s a strange thing to read that list back and realize how little we thought about God while any of it was happening.
Continue reading “The Gods They Carried Out of Egypt”
Ezekiel 8:4
Most of us figure that if God’s calling us to something, life ought to start getting easier, not harder. So when it falls apart instead, we start wondering if we heard him wrong.
Continue reading “Taken into Captivity”
Ezekiel 3:10–11
Most of us have had a moment when we knew exactly what God wanted us to do, and we still hesitated. Not because we didn’t believe him. Because we didn’t feel ready.
Continue reading “Eat the Scroll”
Lamentations 3:24–25
Most of us know the strange quiet of a waiting room. The muffled television, the magazines nobody reads, the clock that seems to move slower than it should. Somebody else has the news. All we can do is sit there and wait for it.
Continue reading “The Only Portion That Lasts”
Jeremiah 42:5–6 (ESV)
It’s easy to make a promise in the moment. Someone asks for our word, and we give it freely, without counting the cost. We tell a friend we’ll be there. We tell our kids we’ll change. We tell God, in a hard season, that if He’ll just get us through this, we’ll do whatever He says. The promise costs nothing to speak. It’s the keeping that gets expensive.
Continue reading “We’ll Do Whatever You Say”
Jeremiah 37:17
Most of us know what it is to want a word from God. Not a sign in the sky, just some quiet sense that He sees what we are facing and has something to say about it. The trouble is, that hunger usually shows up after we have spent a long time keeping His voice at arm’s length. That was Zedekiah’s problem, and he is about the last man we would expect to come looking.
Continue reading “Is There Any Word from the Lord?”
Jeremiah 35:5-6
Most of us know what it feels like to be the only person in the room saying no. Everyone else seems comfortable with the choice. Going along would be easier, and we can usually find a good reason to do it. That is when a conviction stops being an idea and becomes a decision.
Continue reading “When Convictions Are Tested”