March 2023

The following is a possible framework for the Witnessing of the Word. It can be personalised or altered: its purpose is to serve as an example of how this Saying might be used primarily in the context of a Prayer Group, but it may be used by individuals too. It is not intended to be definitive.  In the context of a group: the periods of silence should be appropriate for your group - probably not less than 5 minutes, or more than 15 minutes.

Saying for the month: ‘I will bring you into the wilderness … then you will know that I am the Lord’. (Ezekiel 20. 35 and 38).

In your time of contemplation, you may like to shorten this to ‘know that I am the Lord’.

To begin the exercise, first spend a short while in relaxation and preparing to be still; you may want to relax your way through your muscles or you may find it helpful to become aware of the sounds around you and then put them aside as you offer this time of prayer to God.

Say this introductory invitation to prayer, then keep a further minute or two of silence:  ‘Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest’ (Matthew 11.28).

Introduction to the first silence - a preparation for listening with the mind.

‘I will bring you into the wilderness … then you will know that I am the Lord’.

Ezekiel can seem like a bit of a closed book. Apart from the few familiar passages - Ezekiel’s call, the valley of the dry bones, the vision of the Temple, the watchman - it can seem easy to give up on this long and complicated book in the Jewish scriptures.  It is to our loss if we give up too easily. 

The book is written entirely in the first person. The prophesies are meticulously ordered and dated, even to the day of the month. Ezekiel is more flamboyantly visual than any of the other prophets and the prophesies often verge into the apocalyptic. The book closest to the spirit of Ezekiel is Revelation. 

He was an extraordinary prophet, a visionary, an imaginative who appreciated and understood the powerful place of ritual and symbol. It was his life’s mission to persuade the people of that God, Yahweh, is the Lord. 

It is helpful to know a little about the man, Ezekiel. As a young man in training to be a Priest in the temple at Jerusalem, he was following his father.  Then in 597 BC, Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians and the Jewish people were taken into exile in Babylonia. Exile far from Jerusalem meant the end of all Ezekiel’s hopes. 

Five years later at the age of thirty, God called him to be a prophet. The call was accompanied by a vison, which was to colour his entire ministry: the well-known incident where he saw God in all his awesome glory, above and beyond the world, all-seeing and all-knowing. Against this dazzling visualisation of God, Ezekiel also saw the people’s sin in all its shame and disgrace, and he saw the inevitability of God’s judgement. For six years, this was his message. It was only after the city and Temple of Jerusalem were destroyed, ten years later that he began to stress God’s intention to restore Israel and to look forward to a time when this would be realized. 

Ezekiel often reflects on the wilderness experience of the Israelites. Earlier in this twentieth chapter of Ezekiel, the prophet emphasises the wilderness experience, depicting how God has brought the Israelites out of captivity in Egypt and led them into the desert. Despite many temptations and turning away from God, He is faithful to them, shows them the way and the knowledge of his love for them.  Perhaps there are times where we have all felt the blessing of God’s constancy and of His love for us in the face of our own stumbling? 

With all this in mind, we now take this Saying into our minds, allowing it to speak to us: ‘I will bring you into the wilderness … then you will know that I am the Lord’. 

A time is now kept for silence of the mind – perhaps between 5 and 15 minutes.  The silence concludes with a short thanksgiving, and/or feel free to repeat the Saying.  

The first silence ends with the words: Father, we thank you for the gift of your Word.

Introduction to the second silence - a preparation for listening with the heart: 

‘I will bring you into the wilderness … then you will know that I am the Lord’. 

When we think of the wilderness, what images does it conjure in our minds?  A place that is bare, barren, and usually very hot.  A place that is arid with little water or green growth, where people and animals can often find it difficult to survive.  A place of extreme temperatures.  A place we probably wouldn’t consider going on holiday! 

Yet this is the place and landscape to which God called his people and led them for forty years. It is also a place into which He led his Son, Jesus Christ, for forty days and nights. These were very real experiences of the wilderness. We are not all necessarily called into a literal wilderness as He was, but God does call us into the metaphorical wilderness of our souls, where we are brought face to face with ourselves and with God.  It is the inward journey to discover more about who we are in relation to our God.  

‘I will bring you into the wilderness … then you will know I am the Lord’.

As we spend time in contemplation, we ask God to show us those parts of our lives that have become dried and lacking in growth. It might be in the areas that we have lost our sense of wonder, imagination, or creativity. It maybe where we have become lazy and lacking in enthusiasm. It may be certain compulsive and addictive parts of our lives. It may be certain anxieties that continue to assail us.  It may be a sense of restlessness and inability to be still or to listen to God.  It may that we feel our prayer life needs nourishing and growth. It may be that we feel your intercessory prayers are lacking and ineffective. 

Lent is a good time to be attending to the truth about ourselves. We need to find the wilderness within ourselves, and the streams of living water that only Christ can give us, to bring new growth and enliven our lives with the Holy Spirit. 

Now then, let us take this word into our hearts, as we allow Jesus’ words to speak in us, to let it touch us and let it work more deeply upon our lives.  

A time is now kept for silence of the heart – perhaps between 5 and 15 minutes.

The second silence ends with the words: Father, we thank you that your Word is alive and within us.

Introduction to the time of intercession – taking God’s word outwards into the world.

‘I will bring you into the wilderness … then you will know that I am the Lord’. 

Say the name of a person or a group of people, and after a short pause, repeat the saying. For example: 

‘Alison and your family … “I will bring you into the wilderness … then you will know that I am the Lord”’  or  ‘Alison and your family … “know that I am the Lord”’ (if you are shortening the saying). 

As we allow the word to speak through us we might direct Jesus’ word towards those people and situations where there is suffering, hurt and an absence of joy and where abiding in Christ would bring comfort. 

Conclude this time of intercession with words of thanksgiving: Father, we thank you that your Word has gone out through us to those for whom we pray.

The Conclusion

Feel free to use the Fellowship Prayer (below) or another closing prayer to conclude your time of contemplative prayer:

Loving Heavenly Father, we thank you for all your unsearchable riches which pour forth from you as light from the sun, in boundless profusion and generosity, whether received, ignored or rejected. And now we offer to you, in so far as we are able, as an emptiness to be filled with your divine fullness, ourselves, our souls and bodies; all that we are, all that we have and all that we do. Amen 

You may wish to say the Grace together before departing.