Some more about the flocks...

Still making my way through Ezekiel. (as a side note, my thirst for scripture is crazy insatiable...this is new for me...and pretty darn awesome).

Anyway...last post I shared this conviction about leading the flocks well...In Chapter 36, God reminds Israel of her reward and his promise to her (and things start to get a little "nicer" relative to all the warnings!). There a LOT in there, but I'll pull out one of the two specific sections that really spoke to me...starts in v 25.

"I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit in you (note -- I LOVE that part!) and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws." He goes on to talk about how she will be fruitful and how he'll provide for her...he talks about resettling the towns and rebuilding ruins; cultivating what was dead and barren...and he closes with this "...So will the ruined cities be filled with flocks of people. Then they will know that I am the Lord."

We are in the middle of this kind of awakening/re-birth here on the Westside of Cincinnati.

So, God, if you've really designed me to be a leader, and there's a flock to lead and this fruitful, feeling, re-built place is where we're heading...Count Me In! I'm all yours...

Shepherds and sheep

Zeke is still kicking my butt...chapter 34 got me this morning.

Here's a snippet of Chapter 34: "Woe to the shepherds of Israel who only take care of themselves! Should not shepherds take care of the flock? ...You have not strengthened the weak or healed the sick or bound up the injured. You have not brought back the strays or searched for the lost. ...So they were scattered because there was no shepherd, and when they were scattered they became food for all the wild animals."

I was driving to my favorite "hiding place" where I sometimes go to get work done on mornings when I don't have too many meetings, and this small (sometimes annoyingly persistent) voice kept saying "Africa". It's been whispering the name of that distant continent for a few years now. It also consistently whispers "Price Hill"... And, it consistently whispers "religion". Why these three? One is a distant continent, one is a close, but unfamiliar neighborhood, and one is an all-too familiar place I "lived" for many years. Pathetically, I keep (mostly) ignoring these specific words from the "voice"...mostly out of a long list of fears that I won't get into today, and, perhaps a busy-ness of tending to other whispers from that same voice (or maybe I'm a little clinically insane) that seem to be giving me other really important things to do.

However, a few of those fears are starting to evaporate...quickly...then, Zeke comes along and convicts me again, just as it has been since I started reading a week or two ago.

So anyway...I'm a pretty logical gal...If I am called to be a shepherd (isn't that just another word for leader?); and God is whispering to me about a field of sheep; then...(yes, I know the answer, friends...) And, the promise later in the book seems to provide some insight into the bigger picture...God appoints David to replace the lazy shepherds so that "(the people) will know that I am the Lord, when I break the bars of their yoke and rescue them from the hands of those that enslave them." That sounds like some pretty awesome freedom to me! ;-)

Once again...CRAP! God, tell me which flock to go tend and when...isn't the flock I'm trying to shepherd here and now important...I'm sure there's a connection here...order my steps...here I am...send me...

What is God whispering to you? Is there a flock of sheep somewhere that you are supposed to shepherd? Let's pray for each other!