Draw Near – 365 Guides to Greater Intimacy with GodSample

PRAYER POWER Hebrew legend tells of an ancient rabbi who said he fully understood the book of Ezekiel and would write a complete explanation of it. The council allocated him three hundred barrels of oil for his lamp because they supposed he would need that much to finish his work. According to the story, he never did finish it. Without doubt, Ezekiel is one of the most difficult books of the Bible to understand. While the ancient Jews probably understood it better than we do, most historians agree that they could not capture its full intent. This mystical book was written by a highly cultured young priest named Ezekiel. Tragedy struck Ezekiel in the death of his beloved wife. Called "the desire of his eyes," he was not permitted to mourn her death but had to use the event to warn Israel of their coming sorrows. Ezekiel's prophecies soon came to pass, and Israel became slaves to a foreign power. The most forceful lesson to be learned from the book of Ezekiel concerns the importance of prayer. In Ezekiel's day, God called for an intercessor but found no one who would stand in the hedge and make up the gap. One wonders how different their history would have been if a pray-er had been found.