In days of Ezekiel when God’s glory dwelled in the temple, the people He loved were rejecting Him in every way. There were abominations in His house, idols made to other gods, sin issues getting out of control. Because of hardened hearts and blasphemy in the temple, a place meant to be holy that had now been polluted, God could not remain there.[1] Over the tenth and eleventh chapters of Ezekiel, God’s glory departs from the temple in stages.
I had always read this as a simple cause-and-effect, the natural consequence of action. God gave His people an opportunity they didn’t take, so He couldn’t continue dwelling in a perverted place. Seems fair enough. Until recently—when one of my heroes in the faith relayed this story to me in a different way than I had ever read it. I was sharing a deep heartache in my life, lamenting that no matter how much you give to another person, you can never guarantee any certain outcome regarding their choices. We will never be able to control the decisions of another, as long as free will exists. I tried to express the heartache of loving someone who makes decisions that wound you.
The steady, compassionate voice on the other end of the phone said, “Ah, yes… like when poor God left the temple in Ezekiel.”
I paused, confused, trying to remember the story and find the connection.
“You mean when the people defiled the temple so He took His glory away?”
This person responded, “Well, kind of. But it’s sad, really. Poor God had to pack up like a jilted lover and leave His own house.”
I immediately felt my heart sink.
Our compassionate, loving Father so often gets pegged as a harsh, heartless afflicter. It’s not often we connect with the humanity of God. We tend to see Him only as invincible, almighty, unshakeable—and forget that He also experiences emotions.
If He leaves the temple, we see it as punishment for the sins of the people who defiled it. We don’t see God as a jilted lover whose heart is broken over the disconnection between He and the people He loves. Imagine Him a husband, “packing His bags” and having to leave His home, because of a breakdown between He and His bride, who He gave everything for.
It’s so easy to dehumanize God, to view Him as rock wall. At best, we may see Him as able to connect with our pain and empathize with us. But what if it is His pain we connect with when we suffer? When we’re betrayed, when we’re abandoned, when our hearts are broken by another? When affliction won’t relent and life has wrung us out, we’re stepping into an area of God’s heart only suffering can take us to.
When Paul wrote to the believers in Phillipi from prison, he told them he wanted to know Christ and the “fellowship in His sufferings.”[2] There is a unique, special type of intimacy we gain with Him when we experience affliction. It isn’t a question of whether or not God can empathize with our pain, it’s a question of whether or not we can empathize with His. Perhaps the most repeated phrase in the book of Ezekiel, the term “son of man” appears forty-five times. It places emphasis on how we reflect the parents from which we came. When God sent the Son of Man, deity entered into humanity. Jesus was a product of the Father from which He came, the Son of God, who could now experience everything a human could. He could now be broken.
As C.S. Lewis famously said, “to love at all is to be vulnerable.” God first loved us, and therefore made Himself vulnerable by being the first one to put Himself out there. Putting all His love on the line, even while knowing it would be unrequited. This is true leadership—to lay down one’s life for those you serve. To lay down pride, reputation, rights, entitlement. To lay down what you “deserve.” To be the first one to love, before the love is reciprocated—and still after, even if it’s not reciprocated at all. God demonstrated His love for us this way: while we were still sinners, He sent Christ to die for us.[3] Some translations say “He proved His love for us in this.” He did not wait for us to return His affection, or to respond to Him the way He hoped, before He was willing to give Himself up for us. He gave everything before we gave anything. This is the true heart of both a servant and a leader, and the proof those are the same thing.
By being the first one to love unconditionally, God opened Himself up to immense pain. He knew we could not reciprocate His perfect love, He knew we would fail Him. And yet, even God Himself never removed our free will in order to control our response. He is the one we actually belong to, the one who created us, the only one who ever could have a right to control us. But even He chose to give us the choice. This has wounded Him more than we could ever know, but He chooses that wounding over having forced “love” or “loyalty.” By making Himself vulnerable and being the first one to love, by upholding His end of the deal regardless of the other side, by remaining faithful when we are faithless,[4] God has shown us what unconditional love is—which is the only form of real love.
Although God’s glory left the temple that day, the story didn’t end there. As Ezekiel cried out in distress over the judgement of the wicked, He asked God what would come of the remnant of Israel. God responds with the beautiful promise many of us are familiar with: “I will give them one heart, and a new Spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in My statutes and keep My rules and obey them. They shall be My people, and I will be their God.” [5]
These promises, soaked in compassionate mercy, came immediately after God had been brutally wounded by His bride. Dripping with the anointing of being crushed, His fidelity remained unshaken when His bride betrayed Him. He did not waiver in His love for her, though she turned away from Him, though His heart was aching.
When we are jilted, when we’re wrought by the storms of life, when we’ve given everything for someone who won’t reciprocate our love—we are stepping into the heart of God who went before us. Not only does He return to us a heart of flesh, but He teaches us how to demonstrate His love to those who cannot return it.
Autumn Crew is the Managing Editor of FAI Publishing. She lives in the Middle East and serves a number of disciple-making initiatives. She can be reached at autumncrew@faimission.org.
[1] Ezekiel 10
[2] Phillipians 3:10
[3] Romans 5:8
[4] 2 Timothy 2:13
[5] Ezekiel 11:17-20; 36:26-27