Eze 24:15 Also the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, 16 Son of man, behold, I take away from thee the desire of thine eyes with a stroke: yet neither shalt thou mourn nor weep, neither shall thy tears run down. 17 Forbear to cry, make no mourning for the dead, bind the tire of thine head upon thee, and put on thy shoes upon thy feet, and cover not thy lips, and eat not the bread of men. 18 So I spake unto the people in the morning: and at even my wife died; and I did in the morning as I was commanded.
So many times in the book named after him, Ezekiel, addressed by God as "son of man"
is ordered to provide a harsh object lesson to Israel and her neighbors. Other than Job, maybe Paul, Joseph and Jesus, I can’t think of anyone in the Bible more put upon, more called to suffer than Ezekiel.
An object lesson is a visual that a presenter employs to make a point that the people will forever remember. Ezekiel was a living object lesson.
Among the visuals he was to provide: Ezekiel was to lie on one side for months, and
then turn to lie on the other side for a lengthy period. In another instance, he was
ordered to bake a cake with excrement as one of the ingredients and eat it in front of the people. Here, in chapter 24, he is told that his sweetheart would die that day, but he was not to even shed a tear.
To me, that is some tough stuff. God has brought all of us, His children through some valleys, probably none as tough as what Ezekiel was called to travel.
God was using these bizarre deprivations and testings in the life of His servant to teach others a lesson.
Could it be, and I am sure it is, that every setback, every unusual circumstance we are called upon to bear, is an object lesson to others that they may learn the will of the Lord?
Friend, God does not waste pain. Your valleys are an opportunity to be used of God to help someone else.
Rather than trying shake off your troubles, embrace them for the possibilities they present to be a blessing to another.
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