If the unfolding judgement described in the first part of Ezekiel 24 seems terrible to you then know that it was infinitely worse for God. God wanted his people to know that he was doing these things but he also wanted them to know how grieved he was in the process. What grieved God even more though was the fact that his people were so calloused and indifferent toward what was going on. They were not sharing God’s grief. So, once again, Ezekiel is called on to enact his message, this time in the tragic event of the death of his wife. Curiously, Ezekiel is forbidden from observing the usual mourning customs. He is not forbidden to grieve altogether but rather forbidden from public mourning as was usually practiced by the Jews. Naturally this break in custom shocks the exiles who wonder how he could be so callous. And this was precisely the point. Ezekiel was mirroring their own attitude to them. God had been compelled to give up his people to their own self-sabotage and see the delight of his eyes destroyed before him. And yet all along the people showed no concern about what was happening. All was being lost and yet they remained unmoved. As I have said before, the worst thing that could ever happen to you is that you end up being happy without God. Never let your heart grow so callous that you no longer feel grief and emptiness when you alienate yourself from God. Resolve to be happy with God or not at all.
Ask God to make your heart more sensitive to his presence or absence.
Read Ezekiel 24:15-27
