Moreover, he said to me, “Son of man, behold, I will break the supply of bread in Jerusalem. They shall eat bread by weight and with anxiety, and they shall drink water by measure and in dismay. I will do this that they may lack bread and water, and look at one another in dismay, and rot away because of their punishment. (Ezekiel 4:16,17 ESV)
Dismay
God’s people were in trouble. And here He tells Ezekiel that troubles were going to come. And it might seem that God was punishing them for their disobedience. But He was not punishing them, as we usually think of punishment.
He was about to make them suffer. But not simply because they had done wrong. Rather, He was sending them troubles so they would finally learn to look to HIM instead of anything else. He would make them hungry so they would learn to seek sustenance from Him. He would make them afraid so they would learn to depend on Him. He would take away their comfort so they would learn to take comfort in Him.
From, on, and in Him. Alone.
Because God knows that He was what they need. Because God loves them enough to push them into what they really needed. More Him, less everything else.
And He continues to do that. We will face troubles in life whenever we start to depend on something other than Him. We can count on Him taking away our false hopes, our false crutches, our false providers. So that we will look desperately to Him.
This is not punishment, even when it is a direct result of our sins. Because Christ has already taken our punishment on His back.
But when it happens, our troubles are God getting our attention. Our troubles are God removing what we are depending on instead of Him. Our troubles are God saying, “Come to me… Come to Jesus… Come to what you really need, and you will be astonished at how GOOD life in Him is.”
We are peculiar, our dismay is a step on the way to peace.