Hard Head, Soft Heart

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. – Ezekiel 3:8-9     

I know this person – actually, there are several people I know that are like this – this one who thinks I am easily deceived.  Ben was talking the other about giving and when it is appropriate to give money to someone who might misuse it.  This person comes and gives me a story, usually pretty elaborate, fairly desperate.  It always starts out, “I hate to even ask you.”  One of these days I may reply, “Not as much as I hate to hear you say that.” 

The thing is, I know I am being lied to.  One of the things I prayed for when I first became a Christian was the gift of discernment.  I don’t know if I got that, but I certainly have the gifts of suspicion, skepticism, and cynicism.  None of us probably tell the whole truth all the time.  I don’t, but it’s not with the intent to deceive.  It’s more like changing the names to protect the innocent – and sometimes to protect the guilty.  There are details that people really don’t need to know.  It’s good to be laconic. 

Anyway, Ezekiel in general, and these early chapters in particular have always meant a lot me.  Ezekiel and Thomas, and, to a lesser extent Gideon, are the men in the Bible that I identify with most closely.  Not that I was ever called like them, but they did their jobs.  They did what they had to do.  If I had a motto it would probably be something like “Stick to it.”  To do that, you have to be a little hard-headed.  There is a form of stubbornness that is positive, a refusal to quit even when it’s hard and when it hurts and it’s not going your way.    

There is another side to all this, though, for the same God who made Ezekiel’s head harder than flint said, Be not like a horse or a mule, without understanding, which must be curbed with bit and bridle, or it will not stay near you (Psalms 32:9).  Later on, in Ezekiel 11:19-20, the Lord spoke of a change He wanted to make in His people:  And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God.

There is nothing wrong with being analytical and skeptical in terms of the intellect, but, in the end, the intellect must be informed and guided by the heart.  And the heart must be open and sensitive to the Spirit, to hear God and respond.  This has become something of an expansion of the comment I made on OC yesterday about love and logos.  We can be intellectually rigorous with regard to doctrine so long as it serves love and is motivated by love. 

What my deceptive friend does not understand is that I do not help a person because they can come up with a good story.  Usually the better the story, the less apt I am to buy it.  My head is too hard.  It’s my heart that responds to the plea the Spirit makes between the lies.

Seasoning -- A Chapter Not Strictly Necessary

If you do not want to read a confused, personal, and self-pitying lament, you can skip this.  I'll post something more normal tomorrow.

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.