Daily Manna, Year Two · Day 169 · June 18
Stand Upon Thy Feet
“And he said unto me, Son of man, stand upon thy feet, and I will speak unto thee.”
Ezekiel was a priest, trained to serve in a temple that stood hundreds of miles away from him. When the word of the LORD came to him, he was living among the exiles: "Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldeans by the river Chebar." It was "the fifth year of king Jehoiachin’s captivity," and the temple in Jerusalem was still standing, far to the west.
The vision that opens the book leaves him on the ground: "And when I saw it, I fell upon my face, and I heard a voice of one that spake." Then the voice says, "Son of man, stand upon thy feet, and I will speak unto thee."
Ezekiel cannot get up by himself. Read the next line and see who does it: "And the spirit entered into me when he spake unto me, and set me upon my feet." The command and the strength to obey it come together, and Ezekiel had nothing to do with the second half.
Something like it happens again and again when someone in Scripture goes down before God. Daniel says, "then was I in a deep sleep on my face, and my face toward the ground." Then a hand touches him and sets him on his knees before he is ever told to stand upright. John on the island of Patmos falls at the feet of Jesus as though he were dead, and the first move is not his: "he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not." Paul, fallen to the ground on the road to Damascus, hears a command with a reason attached: "rise, and stand upon thy feet: for I have appeared unto thee for this purpose." And Joshua, lying on his face after the defeat at Ai, hears it bluntly: "Get thee up; wherefore liest thou thus upon thy face?"
Son of man is what God calls Ezekiel more than ninety times in this book, and it means a mortal, a human being. So in the same breath he is stood on his feet and reminded that he is only a creature. The work he is given is hard, too: he is sent to "a rebellious nation that hath rebelled against me."
Later, out on the plain, Ezekiel falls on his face again, and once more the Spirit sets him on his feet. By the river Chebar, a priest without a temple learned that the strength to get up was never going to be his to supply. God gives it as often as His servant falls, and He gives it to you.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 169 is No Weapon Shall Prosper (Isaiah 54:17).