There’s a lesson to be learned from Ezekiel’s diatribes against Judah’s surrounding nations:

Ammon:

For thus says the Lord GOD: Because you have clapped your hands and stamped your feet and rejoiced with all the malice within your soul against the land of Israel, therefore, behold, I have stretched out my hand against you, and will hand you over as plunder to the nations. And I will cut you off from the peoples and will make you perish out of the countries; I will destroy you. Then you will know that I am the LORD. (Ezekiel 25.6 – 7, ESV)

Moab and Seir:

“Thus says the Lord GOD: Because Moab and Seir said, ‘Behold, the house of Judah is like all the other nations,’ therefore I will lay open the flank of Moab from the cities, from its cities on its frontier, the glory of the country… (Ezekiel 25.8, 9, ESV)

Edom:

“Thus says the Lord GOD: Because Edom acted revengefully against the house of Judah and has grievously offended in taking vengeance on them, therefore thus says the Lord GOD, I will stretch out my hand against Edom and cut off from it man and beast. And I will make it desolate… (Ezekiel 25.12, 13, ESV)

Philistia:

“Thus says the Lord GOD: Because the Philistines acted revengefully and took vengeance with malice of soul to destroy in never-ending enmity, therefore thus says the Lord GOD, Behold, I will stretch out my hand against the Philistines, and I will cut off the Cherethites and destroy the rest of the seacoast. (Ezekiel 25.15, 16, ESV)

All the judgments were for how they were treating Israel and rejoicing in Israel’s misfortune.

In context, don’t mess with Israel! There are those who say that’s an everlasting principle, and it might be. Another application has to do with rejoicing over my enemy’s misfortune. That’s an everlasting principle too:

Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. (Romans 12.19 – 21, ESV)

“Overcome evil with good.” Peter said the same:

Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing. (1 Peter 3.9, ESV)

Peter goes on to quote from Psalm 34:

What man is there who desires life and loves many days, that he may see good?

• Keep your tongue from evil and
• your lips from speaking deceit.
• Turn away from evil and
• do good;
• seek peace and pursue it.

The eyes of the LORD are toward the righteous and his ears toward their cry. The face of the LORD is against those who do evil, to cut off the memory of them from the earth. (Psalm 34.12 – 16, ESV)

Another good list, doable. Negatives, for sure, but also positives: do good, seek peace. It’s not enough to turn away from evil, I must do good. It’s not enough to abstain from vengeance on my enemy. Seek peace – then maybe he won’t be an enemy!

I got a call last week from Johnny, a friend from “long ago in a galaxy far away.” Actually, he’s in the Montgomery, Alabama area, and we met frequently when I lived there in the early 2000s.

After discussing a book he’s read several times since I gave it to him and talked about another book, Johnny said something like, “I read the Bible every day, actually the New Testament, Matthew through Revelation, but I don’t think I’m getting out of it what I should.” So I wrote him a short letter and am now deciding to share it with you.

I’m reminded of Martin Luther’s A Simple Way to Pray, a letter written to his barber in which he tells the barber how to pray through The Lord’s Prayer, the Ten Commandments, and the Apostles’ Creed. 22 pages! My “letter to Johnny” is only one page. I reproduce it here:

Enclosed is a plan for reading the New Testament, not in Matthew – Revelation sequence. When we read the gospels one after the other, it can feel a bit repetitious, so this plan spreads the gospels out.

I recommend you read just the one chapter/day. One chapter/day, five days per week, gets all of it in one year. When you read, read slowly and “listen” for what God wants to say to you, personally, through what you’re reading. As Eli counseled young Samuel, say, “Speak, Lord. Your servant is listening.”

When I read, I like to reflect on the one thing I sense God wants to say to me that day. Then I respond to God in prayer over what he told me. If you do this day after day, I think you will be blessed. Here’s a good prayer:

Make me to know your ways, O Lord; teach me your paths. Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all the day long. (Psalm 25.4, 5)

And a promise:

Good and upright is the Lord; therefore he instructs sinners in the way. He leads the humble in what is right, and teaches the humble his way. (Psalm 25.8, 9)

–End of letter–

PS to the blog: those of you who are familiar with my Time with God tool, will notice that I have included only “read, reflect, and respond” in this letter. I left out “record” because Johnny was in a bad car accident around 2005, and he lost the use of his right hand. That is, he can’t write.

Ezekiel 23 is another chapter on the sins of Judah using the image of prostitution. Didn’t we just see this in Ezekiel 16? Ezekiel 23 is the Oholah and Oholibah (Samaria and Judah) chapter. Ugly. Samaria was first in idolatry (the golden calves of Jeroboam). But Judah soon followed. Why does Ezekiel (God) keep covering the same ground? To make the point? Repetition is the key to learning? The Jews of Jesus’ day did not practice idolatry! Apparently, they finally got that part.

The LORD said to me: “Son of man, will you judge Oholah and Oholibah? Declare to them their abominations. For they have committed adultery, and blood is on their hands. With their idols they have committed adultery, and they have even offered up to them for food the children whom they had borne to me. (Ezekiel 23.36, 37, ESV)

It ends with “And you shall know that I am the Lord GOD.”

For thus says the Lord GOD: “Bring up a vast host against them, and make them an object of terror and a plunder. And the host shall stone them and cut them down with their swords. They shall kill their sons and their daughters, and burn up their houses. Thus will I put an end to lewdness in the land, that all women may take warning and not commit lewdness as you have done. And they shall return your lewdness upon you, and you shall bear the penalty for your sinful idolatry, and you shall know that I am the Lord GOD.” (Ezekiel 23.46 – 49, ESV)

I sit here on my patio in peace and security, looking out over the nice area in which I live. It’s hard to imagine soldiers marching through destroying everything or bombs dropping out of the sky.

But that’s exactly what’s happening in the Ukraine, for example. In Biblical language it looks like God using corrupt Russia, led by Putin, to destroy Ukraine. I’m not suggesting that’s true, but it is an example of a highly civilized people enjoying life one minute and invaded and destroyed the next. It can and does happen.

And there’s no shortage of lewdness in our country. Al Mohler, in his essay “The Emperor has no uterus” is observing that the chancellor of the University of California, San Francisco, can’t say for sure that the only people who can be pregnant are women. We have lost our minds.

See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil. If you obey the commandments of the LORD your God that I command you today, by loving the LORD your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his rules, then you shall live and multiply, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. But if your heart turns away, and you will not hear, but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them, I declare to you today, that you shall surely perish. You shall not live long in the land that you are going over the Jordan to enter and possess. (Deuteronomy 30.15 – 18, ESV)

Last Sunday our local newspaper published a feel-good story: The firefighter and the baby: 911 call leads to lifelong bond for two Colorado Springs families. It’s worth the read in its entirety; the opening sentences capture the main idea:

Colorado Springs firefighter Alan Kent was just doing his job when he responded to an emergency call at the home of Stacy and Todd Huddle on Feb. 15, 2004. 

What came next — a lifelong bond between Kent and the family of the child he helped deliver that Sunday morning — may have been born of timing and happenstance. 

Twenty-two years later, it feels more like fate.

It’s certainly got history: Kent has attended Chloe Huddle’s birthday parties, her graduation from high school and from college, and on July 15, her wedding in Arizona. In turn, the Huddles have been there for major Kent family events, including Alan’s July 2025 retirement from the Fire Department.

Theirs is a heartwarming story that’s made local and national headlines too many times to count, but its true power lies in a quieter kind of alchemy — of connections, gratitude and the building of a chosen family, in baby steps. 

On the face of it, it’s a workplace ministry story. A firefighter doing his job meets a real need. I was recently in a meeting with one of the partners of a major home-building company, and before we parted I said something like:

Here’s something we don’t emphasize in our churches enough. Your work is a real ministry. A continuation of God’s work in the world. People need houses. You build houses. Thank you for your service.

So that’s certainly going on here. But the story goes beyond that, and it’s hinted in the opening: “…the building of a chosen family.” The parents chose to include the firefighter in their lives.

The story continues:

It’s not uncommon for a person saved or assisted by firefighters to visit a station, to shake hands, hug and share their gratitude. The Huddle’s follow-up set it apart.

A week after Chloe was born, Stacy bundled up her infant daughter and went to visit the CSFD firefighter who’d helped bring her into the world. 

There’s a picture. I was holding Chloe in the fire station,” Alan said. “So, I got to hold her the second time. That was pretty cool.”

A tradition was born, and would become one of many.

…

“I think we just kept coming back to the fire station every year for birthdays — that was a priority — but we also thought, well, we should make this long-term and make sure that we go to all life events. And that was kind of our goal, and that’s just what we did.”

…

Chloe remembers a long-ago elementary school field trip to Station 15, and feeling like a celebrity “showing all my classmates, like, oh yeah, this is where I have my birthday parties, and there’s Mr. Alan, and this is all the fire trucks I get to play in when it’s my birthday.”

The article closes:

In 2016, before heading off to study to become a teacher in Arizona, Chloe wrote about “her” firefighter in a high school essay recounting a cherished memory. She wrote about a vow her parents made to the Kents, back when she was too little to understand words, “to spend every birthday, graduation and my wedding day with them as a huge ‘thank you.’”

Promises kept. 

“It’s got to be a God thing how it all worked out,” Stacy said. “Our families, we were meant to be together.”

So it’s a story of an intentional relationship. We are blessed with a few of those. Blog reader Laura will most certainly comment on this story and the fact that when she and her husband, Brant, moved to Montgomery, Alabama, with the Air Force, they called The Navigators to see who lived there. I wasn’t on staff, but The Navigators connected them to us. They called and moved into the rental home next door, vacated by another Air Force/Navigator connection. Both of those have been intentional relationships from the early 1980s until now.

Ray is another relationship from those days. He now lives in New Hampshire, and we were visiting for a family event back in 2015. Someone asked Ray why his kids called me “Uncle Bob.” “Is Bob your brother?” Ray replied, “Bob doesn’t have a brother, but if he did, it would be me.”

There is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. (Proverbs 18.24, ESV)

Greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord; also his mother, who has been a mother to me as well. (Romans 16.13, ESV)

Are you up for a little foray into nature? This summer I’m enjoying sitting on the patio most mornings, usually in the company of our new puppy, Paddy.

Needing to go out our little back gate, I saw a creature I don’t remember seeing before. A spider of some sort, you could see the strand of web he (she?) had used to get to the gate. I took the dog’s toy bunny and attempted to swat it to the ground. I say attempted because that spider was FAST. I’d swipe, and it would be several inches away on a different side of the post. Finally, I knocked it into the grass and escaped through the gate.

Interestingly, on the same day, someone else posted a picture of one on NextDoor. “What is it?!” Many were quick with the news: it’s a bold jumping spider. The leaf picture comes from the linked Wikipedia article and contains more than I wanted to know:

Bold jumping spiders are solitary carnivores that use their highly specialized eyesight to actively hunt and stalk prey. They prey on a variety of insects and non-insect terrestrial arthropods such as caterpillars, dragonflies, grasshoppers, and other spiders… Unlike most spiders, bold jumpers do not build webs to catch prey.

The highly specialized eyesight description comes later and starts:

Similar to other spiders, bold jumpers have four pairs of eyes arranged in a semi-circle around their head, giving them nearly 360° of visual coverage.

I’m impressed, first at their design, and second that scientists have studied them and know exactly what each pair of eyes does (read the whole article if you’re interested).

Spiders aren’t named in the Bible, but other predators are, and God takes credit. For example, God says to Job:

Is it by your understanding that the hawk soars and spreads his wings toward the south? Is it at your command that the eagle mounts up and makes his nest on high? On the rock he dwells and makes his home, on the rocky crag and stronghold. From there he spies out the prey; his eyes behold it from far away. (Job 39.26 – 29, ESV)

King David said it about himself, but I think that spider is…

…fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. (Psalm 139.14, ESV)

Ezekiel 22:6 – 12, as so many chapters in the prophets, lists the ways the people of Jerusalem have forgotten God. There will be judgment:

Can your courage endure, or can your hands be strong, in the days that I shall deal with you? I the LORD have spoken, and I will do it. I will scatter you among the nations and disperse you through the countries, and I will consume your uncleanness out of you. And you shall be profaned by your own doing in the sight of the nations, and you shall know that I am the LORD.” (Ezekiel 22.14 – 16, ESV)

As silver is melted in a furnace, so you shall be melted in the midst of it, and you shall know that I am the LORD; I have poured out my wrath upon you.” (Ezekiel 22.22, ESV)

A promise of judgment, concluding with:

• The people of the land have practiced extortion and
• committed robbery.
• They have oppressed the poor and needy, and
• have extorted from the sojourner without justice.

And I sought for a man among them who should build up the wall and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it, but I found none. (Ezekiel 22.29, 30, ESV)

Verse 30 is well known although I haven’t heard it preached in a while. “Stand in the gap…”

If you search “Stand in the Gap” you find organizations. https://www.standinthegap.org/

This one says,

There’s only one response to a gap: stand in it!

So many people want to make a difference in this world, but we don’t know where to start, or maybe we’ve been burned by past experiences. In 1997, two friends and I set out to see if we could develop a repeatable model to “love our neighbors.” After many years and various approaches, Stand in the Gap has become a safe, time-tested model that allows people to know what it feels like to love and be loved.

Another take is the language of Ezekiel reminds one of Moses praying for the people after the golden calf:

Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them, in order that I may make a great nation of you.”

But Moses implored the LORD his God and said, “O LORD, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? (Exodus 32.10, 11, NKJV)

The psalmist summarizes:

Therefore He said that He would destroy them, Had not Moses His chosen one stood before Him in the breach, To turn away His wrath, lest He destroy them. (Psalm 106.23, NKJV)

“Stood before him in the breach” sounds a lot like “Stand in the gap.” So one immediate application is prayer, and in Matthew 9, the prayer is for people – “laborers.”

And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” (Matthew 9.35 – 38, ESV)

But prayer is often followed by action:

And he called to him his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every disease and every affliction…These twelve Jesus sent out… (Matthew 10.1, 5, ESV)

I see a gap in discipleship training. Some churches do everything but.

So the question is, “What gap has God called you to?”

Sahil Bloom’s blog of July 17, 2026, reminded me a principle I’ve heard for years. He credits a “Dear Abby” response from 2000, but I’m pretty sure I heard it before that. No matter. Here’s the “Dear Abby” version:

January 19, 2000

​Dear Abby:

​I am a 36-year-old college dropout whose lifelong ambition was to be a physician. I have a very good job selling pharmaceutical supplies, but my heart is still in the practice of medicine. I do volunteer work at the local hospital on my time off, and people tell me I would have made a wonderful doctor.

​If I go back to college and get my degree, then go to medical school, do my internship and finally get into the actual practice of medicine, it will take me seven years! But, Abby, in seven years I will be 43 years old. What do you think?

​- Unfulfilled in Philly

​Dear Unfulfilled:

​And how old will you be in seven years if you don’t go to medical school?

Indeed. I may have encouraged June with that principle when she was considering whether to start a 3-year Spiritual Direction school when she was 75. “How old will you be in three years if you don’t go to Spiritual Direction school?”

Moses was 80 when he led the Israelites out of Egypt. Harland Sanders began to franchise his chicken recipe after he was on Social Security. He sold the company when he was 73 years old for $2 million ($20+ million today).

A prayer of Moses, the Man of God, ends this way:

Let Your work appear to Your servants, And Your glory to their children. And let the beauty of the LORD our God be upon us, And establish the work of our hands for us; Yes, establish the work of our hands. (Psalm 90.16, 17, NKJV)

The righteous shall flourish like a palm tree, He shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon. Those who are planted in the house of the LORD Shall flourish in the courts of our God. They shall still bear fruit in old age; They shall be fresh and flourishing, To declare that the LORD is upright; He is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him. (Psalm 92.12 – 15, NKJV, emphasis mine)

Continuing in Ezekiel, our reading plan, which has us reading only one chapter/day, has once again showed me a verse I’ve never seen before. God is speaking:

Moreover, I gave them statutes that were not good and rules by which they could not have life, (Ezekiel 20.25, ESV)

As I say, I’ve never seen that verse. What does it mean? In what sense did God give them “statutes that were not good and rules by which they could not have life”? Here’s a suggestion. When you come across such a verse, check it out in other translations. We’re blessed with a plethora of them.

The Living Bible has a nice clarification:

I let them adopt customs and laws which were worthless. Through the keeping of them they could not attain life. (Ezekiel 20.25, LB)

This paragraph from the NLT also makes sense:

Nevertheless, I withdrew my judgment against them to protect the honor of my name before the nations that had seen my power in bringing them out of Egypt. But I took a solemn oath against them in the wilderness. I swore I would scatter them among all the nations because they did not obey my regulations. They scorned my decrees by violating my Sabbath days and longing for the idols of their ancestors. I gave them over to worthless decrees and regulations that would not lead to life. (Ezekiel 20.22-25, NLT)

I “gave them over to worthless decrees…”

Compare Romans 1:

And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting. (Romans 1.28, NKJV)

What are some “worthless customs and laws” that we might be tempted to follow? Here are a few:

• He who dies with the most toys wins.
• If you really want to enjoy watching sports, put a little skin in the game – by gambling.
• If your marriage isn’t going well, just go get another spouse.

The list goes on. Our challenge remains: stick with God’s Word!

To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, it is because there is no light in them. (Isaiah 8.20, NKJV)

This morning, July 22, my son Mark came over at 8:00a to install some overhead shelves in the garage. I had ordered them from Costco and two boxes had arrived on schedule. However, after we opened them, we discovered we were missing some vital parts so I called the number in the instructions. Turns out there are three boxes, and the third one had just shipped. An aborted project. We put everything back, and at 8:45a, Mark prepared to leave.

“Wait! While you’re here can you change the A/C filters?” (Our house has high ceilings, and all three A/C filters require a tall ladder. I don’t do ladders at my advanced age.) The last filter was in our bedroom where June was getting ready to take a friend to a retreat house for the day.

Except… June was in the bathroom struggling with a piece of scrambled egg that had gotten stuck halfway down. Mark has had advanced first aid training, and I called him in to help. Around 9:15a, he texted:

ER at 9:20 if no progress by then. Get ready.

I was out in the living room talking with the lady June was taking to the retreat house. We figured out there would be no retreat house that day, but as she was leaving, she and I prayed that June would be OK. And at 9:20, the piece of food became unstuck. Praise the Lord. But, of course, June was worn out from the ordeal.

A little while later, Mark texted:

You understand why God kept Costco from sending the install brackets. Otherwise we would have been working in the garage while mom was in the bathroom alone.

A good observation. I think it’s called “providence.” Thank you, Lord.

The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear him, and delivers them. (Psalm 34.7, ESV)

Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD delivers him out of them all. (Psalm 34.19, ESV)

PS Mark said the same thing happened to him 10 or more years ago. He had fixed breakfast for his two children, one of whom was in his late teens. Mark got a piece of bacon stuck in his throat. He told the kids something like, “I’ll be out in a minute.” Then he went to the bathroom…just as June had done. He got the bacon piece turned appropriately, BUT, he said that if it had turned the other way, he could have died alone in the bathroom. Lesson: if you’re choking on food, tell someone!

Ezekiel 18 opens with a well-known verse about sin and punishment:

The word of the LORD came to me again, saying, “What do you mean when you use this proverb concerning the land of Israel, saying: ‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes, And the children’s teeth are set on edge’? “As I live,” says the Lord GOD, “you shall no longer use this proverb in Israel.

“Behold, all souls are Mine; The soul of the father As well as the soul of the son is Mine; The soul who sins shall die. (Ezekiel 18.1 – 4, ESV)

He then goes into detail on several fronts. First, what is righteousness?

If a man is righteous and does what is just and right—

• if he does not eat upon the mountains or lift up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel,
• does not defile his neighbor’s wife or approach a woman in her time of menstrual impurity,
• does not oppress anyone, but restores to the debtor his pledge,
• commits no robbery,
• gives his bread to the hungry and covers the naked with a garment,
• does not lend at interest or take any profit,
• withholds his hand from injustice,
• executes true justice between man and man,

walks in my statutes, and keeps my rules by acting faithfully—he is righteous; he shall surely live, declares the Lord GOD. (Ezekiel 18.5 – 9, ESV)

That is, righteousness is not defined by personal piety but by right actions toward others.

Another theme reminds me of a sign in the office of Fisher DeBerry, former football coach at the Air Force Academy:

You’re only as good as your last play.

Or, as Ezekial reports:

“But if a wicked person turns away from all his sins that he has committed and keeps all my statutes and does what is just and right, he shall surely live; he shall not die. None of the transgressions that he has committed shall be remembered against him; for the righteousness that he has done he shall live. Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, declares the Lord GOD, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live?

But when a righteous person turns away from his righteousness and does injustice and does the same abominations that the wicked person does, shall he live? None of the righteous deeds that he has done shall be remembered; for the treachery of which he is guilty and the sin he has committed, for them he shall die. (Ezekiel 18.21 – 24, ESV)

The message of Ezekiel 18 is simple:

Cast away from you all the transgressions that you have committed, and make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! Why will you die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Lord GOD; so turn, and live.” (Ezekiel 18.31, 32, ESV)

“Turn and live.” It’s a message for all and for all time. Jesus said it:

No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. (Luke 13.3 and 5, ESV)