Stubbornness and serving God

For you are not sent to a people of unfamiliar speech and of hard language, but to the house of Israel, not to many people of unfamiliar speech and of hard language, whose words you cannot understand. Surely, had I sent you to them, they would have listened to you. But the house of Israel will not listen to you, because they will not listen to Me; for all the house of Israel are impudent and hard-hearted. Behold, I have made your face strong against their faces, and your forehead strong against their foreheads.  – Ezekiel 3.5-8

I am sometimes asked how we have stuck it for so long here in Ireland. I have very kind people who say they appreciate our faithfulness in such a tough little area of Ireland. Our prayer letters have rarely been very exciting and some people wonder why or how we do it.

I kiddingly respond sometimes that I am too thick to take the hint. It is more a case of being hard-headed than spiritual.

From this I find out that being hard headed may not be such a bad thing. God tells Ezekiel that he gave him a ‘strong face’ to stand up against them. He says we have a strong forehead to face up to their foreheads.

That kind of looks like God gave Ezekiel the stubbornness to toe to toe with his opponents. It seems like his ability to stick it out and not back down was from God.

Praise God to bull headedness. The world is surely bull headed in their sin – we need to be even more bull headed about sharing the gospel with them.