Trying to hear God

"these men have set up idols in their hearts and
put wicked stumbling blocks before their faces"

Ezekiel 14.3

I was really struck today by that idea of setting up a stumbling block for myself. It is true that I have been known to find myself tripping over the shoes I carelessly left in the middle of the room. That is a stupid thing to do - but I haven't yet got round to purposefully trying to place trip hazards so that I will trip up - I'm not that stupid.

And yet, that is what the Lord is saying to us through Ezekiel - we are in the habit of doing just that. So what is the stumbling block and in what way does it trip us up - what were we on the way to do, that this stumbling block prevented?

The thing the people of God were being prevented from doing was hearing from God. They had his words - Ezekiel was amongst them after all. What they were prevented from doing was hearing them as the Lord's words. This is striking. They seem to have recognised that Ezekiel was a prophet - they have even come to him for his advice. This suggests that they know that his words are God's word, but what they don't seem to do - is act on it - live their lives as if the Creator covenant Lord has spoken to them.

So what got in the way - what is the stumbling block - why does God appear distant to his people here? It is their idols. They want to hear from the Creator but worship his creation. 

So how can I know what my idols are? Quite simply they are the things which stop me taking God's word as his word. This could take the form of liberalism, in which someone denies that it is God's word, or skin deep evangelicalism - we have God's word, but we put off acting on it. We are like the mirror gazing fool of James 1. And the person who exemplifies this in Scripture is the Rich young man.

He knows that Jesus speaks God's word - he hears that word - but his idols (money, comfort, status, identity, safety) prevent him doing it.

So here is a good test. What do I know that God wants me to do? Once we've answered that question. The next one is this, "What is preventing me doing it?" The answers to that question are our stumbling blocks, our idols.