Walking the Way: A daily devotional

Ezekiel 34:31 “You are My flock, the human flock of My pasture, and I am your God.” This is the declaration of the Lord God.   Thought for the day – Baa-aa-aa Ministry takes you to some strange places. On Wednesday I went to a cemetery in the hills to do a risk assessment. The cemetery had closed and the decision had been made to allow it to return to the wild. We still need to check it every so often, which was why we were there. And in the middle of the cemetery lay a dead sheep (Insert comments about appropriate places to die etc…). As if that wasn’t enough, there was another sheep nearby, possibly it’s lamb, bleating constantly. It turns out that whenever sheep are separated from the flock, however small the flock is, they bleat. And this is how shepherds find the lost sheep. In our case, eventually the other sheep wandered off. It hadn’t come back when we left. And it was all a bit sad really.   We as people are very much like sheep. That’s why the Bible uses ...

  Ezekiel 33:4 Then, if anyone hears the sound of the trumpet but ignores the warning, and the sword comes and takes him away, his blood will be on his own head. Thought for the day – Heed the warning. On the morning of 14 October 1913, a methane explosion tore through the Universal Colliery at Senghenydd. Four hundred and thirty-nine men and boys never came home. It remains the worst mining disaster in British history. Here's the part that still stings. The warnings were already on file. That pit had blown once before, in 1901. The safety regulations were clear. The colliery had been prosecuted for failing to meet them, and the fine came to £34 in total — The Merthyr Pioneer newspaper worked it out at roughly a shilling a life about the equivalent of £6 a life in 2025. The trumpet had sounded. Nobody listened. Ezekiel gives us the picture of a watchman on the wall. He sees the dust cloud on the horizon. He lifts the ram's horn and blows. And then the responsibility shifts. The...

  Ezekiel 32:2 “Son of man, lament for Pharaoh king of Egypt and say to him: You compare yourself to a lion of the nations, but you are like a monster in the seas. You thrash about in your rivers, churn up the waters with your feet, and muddy the rivers.”   Thought for the day – Do What? One of the things I am most proud of as someone who grew up in South Africa is the truth and reconciliation commission that was set up after the 1994 elections. It was an opportunity to confront the past and potentially rebuild South Africa for the future. Nationalist Party Leader FW De Klerk and ANC Leader Nelson Mandela worked together to drive through significant changes.   As Christians we were encouraged to pray for the country’s leaders, no matter who they were.   God’s wanted Ezekiel to lament for Pharoah. I can’t imagine how hard that must have been. But Ezekiel did. In much the same way people in South Africa were asked to pray for leaders they may not ha...

Ezekiel 31:3 Think of Assyria, a cedar in Lebanon, with beautiful branches and shady foliage and of lofty height. Its top was among the clouds.   Thought for the day – Compared to what God’s words to Pharoah are a challenge. He is comparing Egypt to Assyria and showing how Egypt will be bought down by Nebuchadnezzar in the same way that Assyria was bought down. The analogy of a majestic tree being growing to it’s full majesty and then being felled by foreigners is a poetic one. And one Pharoah would no doubt have understood. But as I was reading the chapter this morning I found myself thinking who we compare ourselves to. I hate to admit it but as a church leader I often find myself comparing my ministry to the ministry of others. And I was reminded that the Bible talks a lot about comparing ourselves to each other.  Paul writes in 2 Corinthians that we do not dare to class ourselves or compare ourselves with those who commend themselves. And in Galatians he wr...

Ezekiel 30:26 When I disperse the Egyptians among the nations and scatter them among the countries, they will know that I am Yahweh.”   Thought for the day – Atheists and foxholes There’s an old military saying: ‘There are no atheists in a foxhole’. That particular version is from the battle of Battan in 1943 But the reality is, it’s something that’s been in circulation from at least 1914, when the Bishop of Liverpool read out a letter from an unnamed chaplain who had written to him, saying there are no atheists at the front, and men are not ashamed to say that though they have not prayed before, they are praying now. But it’s a reminder that people can and do call out to God in difficult times. Whether it’s the trenches of WW1, the foxholes of WW2 or the bedside of a loved one dying in hospital. It seems that disaster has a way of making us acknowledge God in some way. For the Egyptians it was their exile. For soldiers it may be the dropping of shells. For civilians it c...

Ezekiel 29:15 It shall be the most lowly of the kingdoms and never again exalt itself above the nations, and I will make them so small that they will never again rule over the nations.   Thought for the day – Former glory Babylon conquest of the Near Middle East changed the region irrevocably. Under Amasis II Egypt had enjoyed a relatively period of prosperity though it never quite reached the power it had under previous Pharaohs. They had been beaten by Nebuchadnezzar  at Carchemish in 605 BC and then a final humiliation in 568 BC, twenty odd years after the fall of Jerusalem.     And while Egyptians returned to Egypt 40 years after their own exile, Egypt was then subject to invasions by the Persians in 525 BC at which point it became a province or the Persian empire for over 200 years, and even though there was a time of self rule, Pharaoh Nectanebo II became the last Egyptian to rule Egypt for over 2000 years. Alexander the Great took Egypt in 332 BC, ...