O Lord, You Alone Know

Some of you know that we have not sold our home in Kansas. We tried to sell it in the summer of 2007 and like most Americans got stuck. We had buyers who could not get credit. We floated for a year, then tried again last year but everyone was sitting around waiting to see what was going to happen. God provided a renter and we have been OK for this year. The renters are moving out. Even though we know this is the bottom of the market, we are going to try to sell the house this summer. We really need it to sell and sell quickly. Seems like an impossible task.

It seems like it could never happen. It seems hopeless.

Some of you know that I am enrolled in a Doctorate of Ministry Program. The class that I am taking is Prophetic Preaching. My assignment here at the end of the class was to write a sermon based out of Ezekiel 37. It got me thinking about my house in Kansas and the circumstance we find ourselves in.

Ezekiel finds himself in a difficult situation, a hopeless situation.

During his service, Ezekiel pleads with his people to repent and stop their sin, but they would not. The consequences fall down. In Chapter 33 verse 21 we read: In the twelfth year of our exile, in the tenth month on the fifth day, a man who had escaped from Jerusalem came to me and said, "The city has fallen!"-NIV

The thing that Ezekiel had feared the most had occurred. His biggest nightmare had just happened. The city and the temple, the temple of God were destroyed. Everything that Ezekiel had ever dreamed of and hoped for was gone. This is the stage for the conversation between God and God's prophet. God takes Ezekiel to a valley, a valley of scattered, dry, bleached out bones. A place of despair a place where there is no hope for life, a place no one wants to be.

God asks Ezekiel a question "Ezekiel, can these bones live?" Is there any hope in this valley of death and destruction?

Ezekiel, instead of saying that this situation is impossible and that it was hopeless, places his trust in God. You God, you know the answer to this. Instead of answering God, Ezekiel submits, he surrenders all of his despair, all of his lost dreams and aspirations to God with his response. Ezekiel says: "O Lord, You know." Ezekiel's hope is not in the circumstance in front of Him, but in God who is faithful, God who remains steadfast throughout time.

I was wondering what you are dreaming about that is too big to even hope for, too great of a leap of faith that you can't even say that it could happen. Instead, your trust is in nothing but God. The best that you can do is say: O Lord, You alone know.

Is there any hope that our house will sell?

My answer: O Lord, You alone know.

In that I will trust.

 

Peace

Edwin