Ezekiel 2:8-3:3 – Our experience of God’s word must precede our sharing of it

Attitude matters in serving God. He expects His ministers to have total and complete obedience even when the assigned task is challenging, and the message is unpleasant. Such was the attitude God expected Ezekiel to adopt as he ministered to the people in a very trying circumstance.

In Ezekiel 2:8-10, the prophet was instructed not to be rebellious like the people but to open his mouth and eat what he would be given. In other words, the prophet was to first partake fully of the message he was to bear, no matter how woeful or challenging it would be. For emphasis, the prophet saw a hand stretching out to him with part of the scroll of a book. We are not told whose hand it was, but we are told that the scroll was spread before him, and on both its front and back, he saw words of “lamentation, mourning, and woes.”

To be fully engaged in the message was a necessity if Ezekiel was to be God’s effective mouthpiece. He was to make the message of God a personal experience before he gave it to others. God knew that a message that a minister had not first personally experienced himself would not be as impactful. So, Ezekiel was told to eat it before he gave it to others. In Ezekiel 3:1-3 God instructed him to eat the scroll, and then go and speak to the house of Israel. Obediently, he opened his mouth and was given the scroll to eat. So Ezekiel filled his belly with it. As he ate the scroll, though they were words of woeful lamentation, Ezekiel found a sweet and satisfying taste and experience.

What is God saying to us in this passage? If we are to be effective carriers of God’s message to the world, we must first experience the message ourselves. People are more receptive to a message when we the sharers have had a first-hand experience of it personally. Sharing a message that one has not experienced would be mere hollow words. While God’s word has many comfortable words, there are also plenty of uncomfortable words. As carriers of God’s message, we must not only share those soothing and comforting ones, but we must also share the uncomfortable and challenging words of the Lord. There is a need to share the whole counsel of God.