August 11

Ezekiel 10
The lights faded in the review mirror as we departed from Ocean City. I paused within my mind and reflected. It marked the end of a wonderful summer adventure with 60 other collegiate members of Campus Crusade for Christ. We had prayed, studied the Word, evangelized, fellowshipped and obeyed the Lord together for the last three months. I still remember many of their names and think about them from time to time. It was a great summer! As I viewed the fading lights and paused, I mourned that it was over.
Standing at the airline gate, I watched her walk down the causeway to board the jet to Philadelphia. The tears were flowing down her beautiful cheeks as she boarded the plane to go home. I had never become so close to someone before. Each step she took seemed to step upon my heart. She had become my sunshine, and now she was taking it away. I didn’t know where the relationship would go from here, but I knew that already I missed her. Standing there, I did not realize that less than a year later she would be my wife.
I could relate experience after experience similar to these, when I have had to turn my back on a chapter of life and remove myself from it. It is always a time for pausing to remember and reflect on where I have been and where I am going. It is always a time to stand still and ponder where I have been and where I am going from here.
4Then the glory of the LORD went up from the cherub, and paused over the threshold of the temple; and the house was filled with the cloud, and the court was full of the brightness of the LORD’s glory. . . . 18Then the glory of the LORD departed from the threshold of the temple and stood over the cherubim. 19 And the cherubim lifted their wings and mounted up from the earth in my sight. When they went out, the wheels were beside them; and they stood at the door of the east gate of the LORD’s house, and the glory of the God of Israel was above them.
The glory is departing so that He may judge and destroy the city. Yet even as He does so in the fierceness of His anger, He pauses; He stands still. I believe that He was mourning the relationship that could have been if only Judah had only trusted and obeyed. Think of that! Our awesome, all powerful, magnificent God mourns and misses the lost relationship with us. In the midst of His glory is intense desire that He has for us to repent and turn to Him. Knowing what He is about to do to Jerusalem, He pauses and stands and mourns. Judah is unfit to be His ‘bride’. She is little more than a whore. But what He is about to do is designed to cure her of that. What can we say of His church? His judgments and disciplines are made to cure us of our whoredom, so that we might become His pure and spotless bride. Had my time in Ocean City not been so wonderful, I do not think I would have paused for a moment. I would have been glad leave town. Had the girl walking down the causeway not been so wonderful, I would not have given her the time to take her to the airport, much less stand and feel her footsteps crunch my heart. How much greater is He that he loves us and disciplines us so that He might draw us to Himself. Now that is glory! Indeed, we serve a glorious King! Speak His glory to someone today!
--Pastor john