And you, son of man, be not afraid of them, nor be afraid of their words, though briers and thorns are with you and you sit on scorpions. Be not afraid of their words, nor be dismayed at their looks, for they are a rebellious house. – Ezekiel 2:6
If you want to know what I was like roughly half my lifetime
(so far) ago – and I don’t know why anybody would want to know – read the whole
of Ezekiel chapters 2 and 3 in your Bible.
I was not like Ezekiel and I was certainly never a prophet but that was
essentially the call that came to me. Amos
is famous for saying he was neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet but merely
a fig-picker from Tekoa. I always
thought that sounded about right.
I have mentioned how my wife bought a small King James Bible
that I could carry with me on my motorcycle when I went to work. I was so confused by what I found in that
copy of the Bible that I actually opened up the old one my parents had bought
when I was ten or so and compared passages.
I was convinced that somebody had changed the words. They had not.
The reader had changed. And it
got me into a lot of strange situations with strange and sometimes well-known people,
led me to strange locations, not to be a prophet but to feed prophets until the
brook dried up. It was hard, and it was
painful, but, looking back, I can’t complain.
I have been well-paid for my time since then. The bitterness is my own fault, and I can
blame no one except myself. I just didn’t
understand.
Anyway, I figured I was done. I’m old and tired and ready to back to picking,
if not figs, at least blackberries, plums, apples and grapes. I did
not sit in the company of revelers, nor did I rejoice; I sat alone, because
your hand was upon me, for you had filled me with indignation (Jeremiah
15:17). That’s me. Just go away and leave me alone. I am indignant, and bitter. The word might have been sweet as I ate it,
but it turned sour in my guts. I did my
job. What else could there be?
Therefore thus says the Lord: “If you return, I will restore you, and you shall stand before me. If you utter what is precious, and not what is worthless, you shall be as my mouth. They shall turn to you, but you shall not turn to them.” -- Jeremiah 15:19
You have the wrong guy this time. This is clearly meant for somebody else. I’ll put it out here on the blog and maybe
the right one will happen by and read it.
“And I will make you to this people a fortified wall of bronze; they will fight against you, but they shall not prevail over you, for I am with you to save you and deliver you, declares the Lord. I will deliver you out of the hand of the wicked, and redeem you from the grasp of the ruthless.”
All well and good but I have heard this before: Behold,
I have made your face as hard as their faces, and your forehead as hard as
their foreheads. Like emery harder than
flint have I made your forehead. Fear
them not, nor be dismayed at their looks, for they are a rebellious house. My head won’t break. What about my heart?
I probably don’t understand it any better this time than I
did last time. I thought it would be
really cool to be out there on the cutting edge. I thought if someone would speak God’s word
to people those hearing would get the message and get excited, that they’d be
happy to respond positively. I was, in
other words, young and foolish. People
do not like the truth. They prefer, as
Micah pointed out, a prophet who preaches plenty of wine and beer. Not that there’s anything wrong with
that.
There is no question that the world has long been inundated
with worthless words, and despite all the Christian broadcasting that goes on,
there is a famine of words that are noble and worthwhile. Like gold, the truth is precious by its
rarity as well as by its power.
So what do I do with my bitterness? Perhaps there is a purpose even for
that. God said of the Passover Lamb
which prefigures Christ: They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted
on the fire; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it. You can’t live on it, but it can make a
good condiment.
