Choosing a heart of flesh
In our last post ‘Detestable Things’, we saw how Ezekiel received a vision from God of yes, you’ve guessed it, detestable things. All the detestable things God’s people were doing and saying and the consequences of these things.
And yet the story doesn’t finish there. The story never finishes there.
Because where there is evil, there is always good to be found.
Where there is hatred, there is always love to be found.
And where there is despair, there is always hope to be found.
God has not forgotten His promises to His people. He will never leave them or forsake them.
This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I will gather you from the nations and bring you back from the countries where you have been scattered, and I will give you back the land of Israel again.
They will return to it and remove all its vile images and detestable idols. I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh. Then they will follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. They will be my people, and I will be their God. Ezekiel 11:17-20
The Lord is sovereign. A supreme ruler possessing ultimate power. Let’s start there, shall we?
He will gather His people. He will bring them back from exile. He will restore what they have lost.
And the people will be changed. Their lives and their homes and their communities will be changed. Their hearts will be changed. Their relationship with their God will be changed.
They will be my people, and I will be their God.
Of course , this has always been true. But now in exile, it is hard for God’s people to feel that they are God’s people. They are scattered. They are in a foreign land. They have none of the structures and supports and traditions that support their faith.
It’s the same for us to some degree too. We meet together with other Christians maybe once or twice a week and then for the rest of the week, we go it alone. We may be the only person of faith in our family or community or friendship group or workplace. There are plenty of things to chip away at our faith. The environment is not conducive to maintaining a relationship with God. We’re constantly presented with opportunities to conform to the values and behaviours of the group and move away from God’s values and love. Our hearts become hardened in thousands of tiny ways. By hurt, teasing, jealousy, gossip, unfairness, lack of integrity, turning a blind eye, putting someone else down, envy, desire, greed, selfishness, indifference, lack of respect.
We erect barriers between ourselves and others. Between ourselves and God. Sometimes deliberately. Sometimes not.
We think we are protecting ourselves. We are in reality isolating ourselves.
We’d rather not experience closeness than open ourselves up to the possibility of experiencing pain. We’ve been there before. Never again.
We fear intimacy. We fear vulnerability.
And our hearts slowly become hearts of stone.
And then we cannot fully live, we cannot fully love, we cannot fully be human.
If we want a heart of flesh rather than a heart of stone, we have to stay connected. Connected with God and connected with others. For our heart to stay soft, we have to be kind – to ourselves and others. Yes, we run the risk of being hurt. We will make ourselves vulnerable. But we will open ourselves up to being fully alive and fully human. To know what it is to love and be loved.
Our instinct is to protect ourselves. I recognise the hedgehog in me that curls up into a prickly ball when it is prodded with a sharp stick. But I want a soft heart, a beating heart, a responsive heart. And so I will learn to uncurl and expose my soft side.
I will take that risk.
I will choose a heart of flesh.
