November 13, 2018
Have you ever had to substitute an ingredient in a recipe? Last night I was preparing for Sunday lunch and discovered that I didn’t have a key ingredient. So I decided to substitute. Would the food be edible? Would my family turn up their noses in disgust?
Substitutions often produce less than satisfactory results. In Ezekiel 16, the prophet is using prophetic poetry to speak to the elders. In Ezekiel 14, Yahweh, through the prophet identifies the idolatrous hearts of the people. Then the Lord states that He will answer the people despite their idolatrous hearts, so He can recapture the hearts of His chosen people.
In Ezekiel 16, the Word of the Lord compares the detestable practices of the Jewish people to an adulterous woman. The Jewish people had allowed their hearts to be captured by desires that became substitutes for following Yahweh. In Ezekiel 16:15-34, we see that in Israel’s fame and prosperity, she has forgotten the Lord who gave her the wealth and she has begun to use God’s generous gifts for worshipping idols. How many times am I guilty of worshipping the creation and not the creator? Romans 1:21-25
It is easy for the desires of my heart to captivate my life. I become focused on how others perceive me. I quickly become consumed with my desires to have the life that I see someone else enjoying. I begin to question why God didn’t choose to heal my mom while others enjoy lifetimes of relationships with their moms. The desires of my heart begin to beat consistently with a message of discontent and my soul pulses with desires to please myself rather than seek God.
Whenever God’s people turn from His Word and become satisfied with substitutes, they are headed for failure. Israel chose to trust in their own abilities to secure their borders and made alliances with their neighbors. They substituted their own wisdom and abilities for God’s strength and power. How often have I chosen to worry, run ahead of God, fixing problems, resolving situations with my own abilities, believing myself to be wise. Proverbs 3:7 states; “Do not be wise in your own eyes.” Yet, I choose to substitute my wisdom, a pale imitation of God’s wisdom, to resolve relationship conflicts, figure out how to pay for that unexpected expense, or fix my children’s issues. I choose a cheap imitation to rely on rather than bringing my desires, my heart, to God and allowing Him to captivate me and show me His wise plans.
Imagine that sandbox in your childhood backyard and the fun you had there as a child, making castles and mud pies in the frigid and colorful Indiana fall. Leaves twist and twirl around you as they litter the ground and the wind whistles through the air, chilling you to the bone. Then a family member comes to offer you an all expense paid trip to the balmy coast of Florida and even throws in a visit to Disneyworld. You ignore them because you are enjoying your chilly mud pie making fun. All too often, like Israel, we become comfortable with the substitutions we have made for seeking and following Yahweh. We choose to make mud pies when we could be reveling in a vacation. The substitution I made for my dinner was satisfactory but it was far from its usual deliciousness, much like the imitations that we grow accustomed to in our lives, not recognizing that God has so much more in store for us.
C.S. Lewis puts it this way; “It would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half hearted creatures, fooling around with drink, and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum, because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at sea, we are far too easily pleased.”
What mud pie desires do you need to let go of, so you can know the infinite joy of letting God recapture your heart?
lkb