“Consistency is the name of the game”
By Rev. Michael Stonhouse
Meditation – Friday, March 4, 2022
Ezekiel 18:1-4,25-32 (Forward, p. 34) CEV p. 856
DNF happens to be one of the saddest designations in the history of sport. It is used in long distance running, swimming and cycling. It signifies, ‘Did Not Finish’, and implies that though the person started out well, started out with the best intentions, he or she simply petered out, did not finish. It does not mean merely that he or she came last or had a dismal showing but didn’t even ‘get’ to the finish line. He or she quit before that.
Sadly, that designation could be said of so many people today. How many people, in sports, in entertainment, in politics, or in public service, had glorious and illustrious careers, great reputations, only to have them cut short or sullied by some misdeed or misadventure. I am sure that each of us could far too easily put names and faces to this. In all of these there is some sort of flaw, something in their lives that renders them unable to be consistent, unable to live out what is almost certainly their stated, and probably real, ideals and intentions.
What, then, God is calling forth in today’s passage from Ezekiel is a demand for consistency of life, consistency in behaviour. We will be judged only on account of what we do, and not for anything in our past. In other words, he is holding out the promise, and the possibility, of a change in behaviour. In other words, we are not ‘stuck’, not condemned, for better or for worse, to live out the way we have in the past. We can change all that, and God will accept that and forgive all that is past. What wonderful news that is, for each of us, for it means that we can have a fresh start. What a wonderful news that is, especially during this Lent, this season of change and new beginnings. Amen.
Forward notes: “Cast away from you all the transgressions that you have committed against me, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit!” (verse 31a)
“The Israelites were having difficulty grasping what God was telling them: an old proverb they followed no longer applied. This was news they didn’t want to hear. ‘God is unfair,’ they cried, even as God offered something better, something more liberating and life-giving. Did God force a new
understanding on them? No. But God did give guidance on how to adopt this new perspective. Change your heart! Get a new spirit! God directed the Israelites to look inward.
“Spiritual growth occurs when I take time to look inward, reflect, and pray about issues that trouble me. When I examine my beliefs in prayer and trust in God’s loving guidance, my heart is softened and my spirit renewed. I can see the life-giving path to which God is calling me.
“For us, as for the Israelites, change starts from within.”
MOVING FORWARD: “Be the change God wants to see.”
A concluding note: And the Good News in all this is that God Himself is more than willing to create this new heart, this new inner resolve, this new heart-felt desire, within us. In Ezekiel 36:26, we hear God promising to give this to us if we ask. And this is precisely what the psalmist, King David, asks of God, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me” (Psalm 51:10). And so, wonderfully, it is not something that we have to create. Thanks be to God.
