Colin Hutchison
3 . 5 . 2020
As each Lords day comes and goes each one of us will reflect on what we might have been doing and where we would have been in normal times.
This is precisely where Ezekiel is in this chapter. If things had been normal he would have been taking his place as a priest in the sanctuary at Jerusalem but instead he was with the captives by the river of Chebar. God had a different plan for Ezekiel, to adjust his calling from being a priest to being a prophet.
Three times over in scripture God moves in this way and each time for a specific purpose.
He adjusts Ezekiels ministry from priest to prophet to deal with problems in the House.
He adjusts Jeremiahs ministry from priest to prophet to deal with problems in the heart
He adjusts John the Baptist’s ministry from priest to prophet to deal will problems in the walk and way.
What a great loss there would have been if these men had not been sensitive to what God was doing in them.
I was saved under the powerful gospel preaching of brother Alex Dryburgh. Alex and his wife Irene with their children heard the call of God to leave Scotland to serve The Lord in Labrador(Canada)
On his first visit home I asked him what lessons he had learned from his time in full time service.
He said “I learned that God had more to do in us than he had to do through us”
That’s why God allows strange times like these, to do an invaluable work in us which might make us a better fit for what he has to do through us.
May God help us learn this and as and when the lockdown is lifted we might come out of it with greater spiritual depth and a deeper understanding of his word.