The prophet Ezekiel was being held in captivity. The call he received to become God’s prophet is both bold and scary. The Spirit of God whooshes Ezekiel from the ground to his feet. Then God calls him “Human one” or “a mere mortal” (a total of 94 times throughout the book) and commands Ezekiel to go to the Israelites to warn them of the soon-to-be destruction of Jerusalem and the temple. Words of hope and redemption are not given until all is lost and destroyed. And if this wasn’t hard enough to hear, God then tells Ezekiel – by the way, they aren’t going to listen to you anyway!

We are reminded throughout Ezekiel’s call that it’s never about the messenger. It's about God’s message. The heart of God is shared by the prophet’s words of woe, warning, or deliverance. A prophet’s responsibility is to tell the people of God what God has to say. And whether or not the people respond to God, they would know, God has spoken! A prophet’s task is hard.

By Natalie Nicholas Adams from D365