HELP WANTED: See God

I looked for someone among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so I would not have to destroy it, but I found no one. So I will pour out my wrath on them and consume them with my fiery anger, bringing down on their own heads all they have done, declares the Sovereign Lord (Ezekiel 22:30-31).

It’s hard to build a wall.  A gap is a tough place to stand in.  What is God after in these verses?

As we continue our summer theme of Make Room: Creating Space for God, we’re now focusing on prayer.  How can we make room for prayer, more room for more ways of prayer?  Whatever we already know and can do as pray-ers, how could we deepen and develop?  

Take a moment now to read the whole passage for this week: Ezekiel 22:23-31.  Pretty tough stuff, huh?

And a lot of it sounds pretty familiar, describes life today as well as 2500 years ago when Ezekiel wrote, right?

Our passage ends with a HELP WANTED posting that goes unanswered.  God was looking for wall-builders and gap-standers … but didn’t find anyone interested in the position.

“Walls” are structures we humans build to protect some aspect of God’s good Creation.  We build a wall around a garden to protect and preserve it, to indicate who carries responsibility for it, to permit the garden to produce fruit that will nourish the entire community.  We build “walls” called families, schools, hospitals and the like.  Obviously, bad walls exist, but good or bad, all walls are built by … us.  As we read through the indictment in this week’s passage (verses 23-29), it’s clear that many good walls have collapsed, and many bad walls have been built in their place.

As a result, God’s Justice is on its way.  A “gap” currently exists between that promised, oncoming justice and the possibility for repentance, mercy and renewal.

So God goes looking, searching for those who will learn from God how to build the right walls in the right ways in the right locations – and for “gap-standers.”

Another word for “gap-stander” is mediator.  One who stands in-between two parties, seeking their reconciliation.

Prayer is where this mediating work begins.  Prayer that focuses first not on our speaking, but on our seeing and hearing: seeing things the way God does, and hearing what God is saying, and then responding accordingly.

God couldn’t find anyone then; may God find someone now, even us.

One aspect of the mediating/gap-standing work is prayer for our leaders.  Pick a leader whom you admire, whether in government/politics, church, science, culture, or in some other fields, and commit to pray for them daily, by name, for the next two weeks.

Challenge item: pick a leader with whom you disagree.  Pray for him or her daily, by name, for the next two weeks!

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