I forgot to set the clocks back.

Daylight Savings Time expired here in Colorado this morning at 2 am. I knew I should fix the clocks last night, but I got busy. Then I fell asleep watching a football game and crawled into bed. Only this morning at 6 did my wife turn to me and mumble, we forget to set the clocks back. Sometimes lack of action leads to fortuitous circumstances. I blissfully snored for another hour.

More often our lack of action leads to problems. Ezekiel received this message from the Lord regarding his unmotivated audience:

My people come to you, as they usually do, and sit before you to hear your words, but they do not put them into practice. Their mouths speak of love, but their hearts are greedy for unjust gain. Indeed, to them you are nothing more than one who sings love songs with a beautiful voice and plays an instrument well, for they hear your words but do not put them into practice.

Notice the repeat of the phrase, they hear your words but do not put them into practice. When it comes to a life of faith it’s the doing that matters. These folks thought of Ezekiel as a traveling minstrel. The wild-haired prophet made for good entertainment. But give credence to his warnings? Let’s not get crazy.

When faith competes with entertainment, faith loses. Formerly an after-hours activity, in our era of 24/7 amusement fresh diversions wait eagerly at our fingertips. The hard work of living the faith loses to lazy distraction.

But as Ezekiel understood, the words of God are the basis of life, not just another option to scroll through. With that in mind, gathering with the saints keeps our lives on track in ways a recorded service fails to accomplish. We need each other if we’re going to actually live the faith and push back the distractions.

Let us keep the faith, and put God’s Word into practice in the company of others. Over time we’ll find ourselves in a better place, and we’ll realize it was the doing that mattered.

Ezekiel 33 in reading the Bible in 2023

Photo by Jon Tyson