God’s desire for us is very simple. He simply wants to be our God. He is God, but he wants us to be willing for him to be who he is. In most cases people are not willing for God to be their God. Most people want to set the course for their own lives and follow their own goals. Often people do this and then try to enlist the help of God in pursuing the things that they want to pursue. This is what was happening in Ezekiel’s time. The Jews wanted to do things their own way and they wanted God to help them. But God says to Ezekiel here that he will answer these people’s prayers “in keeping with their idolatry”. He meant that he intended to call their bluff. God was going to highlight the fact that they were not treating him as their God. Their hearts were not submitted to him. Instead, they were pursuing other dreams and goals which were the idols of their hearts. These goals were, as God says, like “stumbling blocks before their faces”. Our self-devised dreams never empower us. Some well-meaning motivators tell us that we should ‘follow our dreams’. But following our dreams is sometimes the worst thing we can do because often our dreams are just expressions of our need to self-validate and build our own identity. These dreams can then become the greatest inhibiting burden upon us. God wants to recapture our hearts and set us free from our own selfish ambitions. Only when we yield to God as our God can we truly become all that we were created to be.
Ask God to bring to light any selfish ambitions that you may be harbouring in your heart.
Read Ezekiel 14
