Scripture: Ezekiel 18:1-32
Journal: How does this passage speak to your life today? What inspires you? What disturbs you? What is God trying to say to you?
Reflection:
Let's face it, some things in Scripture are
just downright disturbing. Oh, maybe not disturbing in a chaotic, random,
hopeless, makes no sense kind of way, but disturbing in a challenging,
unsettling, disorienting and reorienting kind of way.
And this is definitely one of those things: our children belong to
God and not to us. We do not own them, nor can we save them.
And they cannot save us.
We cannot save them from
grief and sorrow and sadness. We cannot save them from sickness and
struggle and pain. We cannot save them from hurt and
hardship and brokenness; as much as we might like to think that we can.
And they cannot save
us. They cannot save us from loneliness and isolation and despair.
They cannot save us from fear and anxiety and insecurity. They cannot
save us from feelings of insignificance and unimportance and
unworthiness. And when we demand or expect them to, it can get ugly
really fast. Because our children belong fully to God, and not to
us. Therefore, we must learn to love them well, but we must also learn to hold
them loosely.
My sense is that most of us
try to get something from our children that they were never intended to
give. In fact, if we do not get from God what only he is designed to give
us, then we will try to get it from our spouses. And if we do not get it
from our spouses, we will try to get it from our children. And if we do
not get it from our children, we will try to get it from our world--and so goes
the downward spiral. When we live our lives needing and demanding
something from the people in our world that they were never designed to
fully give, it always leads to dysfunction—unhealthy dependence or enmeshment
with those in our lives and world. Each one of us, first and foremost,
belongs to God. It is he alone that can meet us at our point of deepest
need. And only when we allow him to fully meet us there can we ever hope
to be able to truly love those in our families, our lives, and our world
without needing to control or manipulate them.
O God, let me never seek (or demand)
from someone else what you alone can give.
Prayer
Closing
Prayer: O God, let me never seek (or demand) from
someone else what you alone can give.
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