Walking the Way: A daily devotional

Ezekiel 41:19 Each winged creature had two faces: A human face looking at the palm tree on one side, and a lion's face looking at the palm tree on the other side.   Thought for the day – Patterns As I was reading the chapter today, I found myself wondering about the idea that patterns play an important part of Scripture. Ezekiel’s descriptions of the winged creatures on the walls and doors of the Temple are an echo of his vision of the winged creatures before the throne of God, the Cherubim. The same Cherubim appear before the throne of God in John’s Revelation, In Solomon’s Temple and also there a Cherubim the guards the gates to the Garden of Eden. A reminder that there is more to life than is explained in our theories. The Cherubim in Judaism play a very specific role. They are guardians of sacred spaces, hence the Cherubim at the Garden of Eden. But they also appear on the curtain dividing the Holy of Holies and they overshadow the Mercy Seat on the Ark of the Covenant. All of ...

Ezekiel 40:41 So there was a total of eight tables, four inside and four outside, where the animals were killed Thought for the day – Grace witha floor plan I don’t if anyone listening, has ever walked through a brand new building. There’s a smell of cement, wood and dust. There’s a freshness about it that is exciting but at the same time a real sense of anticipation of the things that will happen that building. And at times it may feel almost like a mausoleum.  A memorial to the things to come. In today’s chapter, Ezekiel is taken in a vision to Jerusalem and shown the new Temple that would be built. And it’s  all very pristine, very new, right down to the tables that would be used for the sacrificing of animals. There’s a sense of efficiency and order that belies that bloodshed that will follow. There's something quite unnerving about that precision. Ezekiel doesn't just shown a Temple — he shown precision and efficiency. Tables of a specific length, specific width...

  Ezekiel 36:9 For I am for you, and I will turn to you, and you shall be tilled and sown.   Thought for the day – The gardening God One of my abiding memories as a child is going to visit my great aunt Nellie on their smallholding in Zimbabwe. Nellie was an amazing gardener. There wasn’t much she couldn’t grow and her garden was always full of snapdragons, foxgloves, flame lilies and roses. And she would spend hours cultivating the flowers and preparing the ground for the next season’s planting. And that love of gardening stayed with her all the way till her final few years. And today’s verse from Ezekiel took me to her garden and the time I spent there as a kid and watching my aunt intentionally do things in her garden to make it the paradise I remember. And that’s the things about God. God is intentional about everything. Even when he is preparing Israel for coming home. He is preparing them for their return, and he is being very intentional about it. Hear the wor...

Ezekiel 39:21 I will set My glory among the nations, and all the nations shall see My judgment that I have executed, and My hand that I have laid upon them. Thought for the day – Who is Watching Every empire wants to be watched. Rome built roads so the world could see its reach. Egypt built pyramids so history couldn't look away. We are, all of us, curating and  creating something — a highlight reel, a testimony, a legacy — hoping someone notices and draws the right conclusion. God does something similar in Ezekiel 39, and it should unsettle us a little. After Gog's catastrophic defeat, God doesn't just want the nations to hear about his glory. He says the nations will see it. This isn't a lesson delivered in a speech. It's a lesson delivered physically, in person — a battlefield, a defeated army, a watching world drawing its own conclusions from what's right in front of them. Here's the uncomfortable bit: God's glory gets displayed through ju...

  Ezekiel 38:3 Son of man, set your face against Gog of the land of Magog, the prince of Rosh, Meshek and Tubal, and prophesy against him   Thought for the day – The text in context I love how Scripture keeps surprising me. Yesterday it was whether God can revive his church. Today it's a lesson in context. My mind, anyway, boggles at where the Spirit takes me.   Reading today's chapter, Gog, Magog, Meshech and Tubal floated to the surface — and Gog and Magog in particular. Genesis 10:2 lists Magog, Meshech and Tubal as sons of Japheth, grandsons of Noah. Revelation 20:8 has an army from Gog and Magog invading Israel. Read across Genesis, Ezekiel and Revelation, the picture is consistent: peoples from the north, set against the people of God. This is where context earns its keep. Meshech is usually linked to the Mushki, an Anatolian people the Assyrians recorded fighting from the 12th–8th centuries BCE. Tubal appears in the same sources as Tabal, a neighbouri...

  Ezekiel 37:3 He said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?”   Thought for the day – Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones Recently I heard some really sad and distressing news about the Methodist Church in the UK. It is reckoned that at the current rate of decline there will be no more than 20000 members of the MC in 10 years’ time. And as I look across traditional mainline congregations, I see the same thing happening.   A mathematician by the name of Dr John Hayward applied the principle of contagion to church. How contagious are our churches? He applied the ‘R’ rate, or the rate of reproduction to the life of the church. The Roman Catholic Church and the Church of England have ‘R’ rates of 0.9.   Anything below 1 indicates that there is no contagion or reproduction, meaning numbers of church-goers will only reduce as no new people are encouraged to become part of the church. The Methodist Church has an ‘R’ rate of .85 and here in Wales, the Church ...

  Ezekiel 35:13 Thus with your mouth you have boasted against Me and have multiplied your words against Me. I have heard them.   Thought for the day – God is still God I wonder sometimes how much people must hate God. I’m treading on some very thin ice here, but I wonder if one of the reasons, atheists spend so much time railing against faith and religion is because inwardly and probably subconsciously they have a deep hatred for God. People such as Stephen Fry, Ricky Gervais, Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins. They will no doubt claim that rationality and science drive their convictions, but so often their attacks on faith and God are so vitriolic that it borders on hatred.   I get really cross when people slag God off. And I get really cross when people build their careers on slagging God off. But then I’m reminded that God is still God even if those who hate him denounce him. And God is well aware of the things that are said about him. But here’s the thing. Wh...

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, ...

Ezekiel 28:9 Will you still say, “I am a god,” in the presence of those who kill you, though you are but a mortal and no god, in the hands of those who pierce you?   Thought for the day – Namaste Have you ever used the word ‘namaste’. It’s a traditional greeting used in India by Hindus, Buddhists and Jainists. When you say it, you hold your hands together like you’re praying, bow slightly and say ‘namaste’. And in translation it means ‘the sacred in me recognizes the sacred in you’. The god in me recognises the god in you. And I think it has entrenched that new age principle that I am divine. I am my own god. As Christians, we might read that differently. We are not divine, but we are made in the image of God. But we are definitely mortal. I remember having a conversation with someone who had an eclectic approach to faith. She wanted to take the best bits from every religion and incorporate it into her own faith system (her word not mine). She was dying of cancer and want...