A few weeks back I kept waking up and thinking Ezekiel 31. To be honest, I really wasn’t even sure that this chapter existed in the Bible. This thought was definitely not mine.
As I thumbed through my Bible the next morning, anxiously trying to find Ezekiel 31, I was somewhat disappointed when I began to read. It was a scripture about pride. The whole chapter talks about pharaoh and his great fall.
It wasn’t until yesterday that I was finally humbled enough to see the pride in myself. Its easy to look selfless on the outside, doing mission work, serving others, but all of this can be done selfishly. All of this can be done in pride.
So last night as I prayed for God’s help to humble me, I asked for a dream, I needed some encouragement.
The dream I received was a bit strange, however thinking on it this morning it really moved me.
I dreamed of a dolphin.
Not a dolphin moving effortlessly through the entrancing blues of the Pacific, but a dolphin tangled in fishing line. The line digging itself into the flesh, causing pain, limiting the sleek swimmer from doing what it was created to do.
I was the one to unwrap this creature from its worldly tangle. I remember thinking, “This has to hurt,” but with every twist of the line the dolphin looked back at me with love. The dolphin looked away from the pain and locked onto my eyes with the softest of loves. Its eyes radiated the words, “I know you’re trying to help me, I know that you love me.”
This morning I understood a bit more of what the Lord might be saying. I feel he might be saying something like, “ How do you look at me when I am unwinding you from your mess? Do your eyes look to me with love?”
If God is for us then who or what can be against us? God works all things for the good of those who love him, even pain, even confusion, all things.
I want to look to Jesus with the deepest of loves, even when my heart is breaking, even when it seems everything is coming against me.
I want to let pain be a reminder that God is working, that God is unwinding the mess and is enabling me to swim again. He is bringing me back into freedom. He is bringing me back to what I was made for.
I want to look to him with love, always. Not just when all seems to be well in my world, but when everything seems out of order, when things are hard. When lines that have dug into my life for years are being exposed, I am going to stare back into love. I’m going to look at Jesus and say, “I know you’re trying to help me, I know that you love me.”
So here’s a question, how do you see him today? Do your eyes look on him with love?
