Part Seven: Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part IV, Part V , Part VI first.
It takes your breath away, doesn’t it? Can you feel your heart surging with longing and hope? Can you feel the stir of things you didn’t know were there? Is this stretching your view of God?
Join the club, but not the group of longers and thirsters and piners and whiners. No way. Join the company of enjoyers. The family of partakers. Of worshippers. Join the fellowship of those who have answered the call to life, to intimacy, and to royalty. The ones who are living it and loving it.
And don’t throw away your opportunity.
You see, the last part of the story in Ezekiel 16 ends in tragedy. Bitter regrets. Should have beens.
What?! After all this? What ever happened to living happily ever after?
I know, I know. But the next two words in the passage say it all.
“But you…” (Ezekiel 16:15a)
Ouch. But you. But me. We can mess this up, can’t we? In Ezekiel’s story, the woman (Jerusalem) throws it all away. All the blessings, all the intimacy, all the life, all the love. She basically spits in God’s face, but worse.
Jerusalem even goes so far as to use the very beauty and gifts she had been given by God to use as instruments of sin. She commits adultery. She takes him for granted. She breaks his heart.
Our loving God, the One who is likened to a consuming fire, tries to win her back. He keeps calling her to Himself. It’s all there, waiting for her to come back to, but she chooses death instead of life, independence over his love.
Incredible, isn’t it?
And yet so very typical.
You may not be able to identify with Israel’s particular indiscretions. That’s not the point. This is a picture, remember, an illustration.
An invitation.
Let’s not miss the message for us, for you: Some invitations don’t get opened. Some we read and then discard. Some get marked on our calendars and are forgotten later.
Some parties have a lot of cake left over because so many people didn’t show up.
Especially God’s parties.
So what about you? You there, lying in your blood, out in the field. What are you going to do with the invitation?
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We’ve come to part seven of this drama. Seven is the number of completion, of covenant. The story wouldn’t be complete without the seventh part.
Here’s the thing: The seventh part is your part. It’s up to you to write.
Me?!
That’s right. I can’t do it for you. Now it’s time to live, to dare your destiny, to forge your future.
I know. You want me to spell it out for you. You want instructions to follow. But if you latch onto a list, you’ll miss the Lover. The relationship.
I realize it’s awkward. As I write this I feel like the eighth grade buddy pushing his love-struck friend towards the girl he likes but is too nervous to talk to.
So go on, talk to him. Talk to God. Ask him to dance. Tell him how you feel about him. Tell him you’re scared. Tell him you don’t know what to do next, that you’ve never been on this kind of date before.
But…
No more buts. That’s all I’m going to say.
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