Thought Tapestries

On a crisp morning, two friends set out along the Dog Mountain Trail in the Columbia River Gorge near Hood River. The path climbed steadily through open meadows bursting with wild sunflowers and balsamroot, the wide Columbia River far below carving its ancient course between basalt cliffs and distant, snow-dusted peaks.

They paused at a scenic viewpoint where the trail leveled briefly, offering a sweeping panorama of the gorge. One leaned on his trekking poles, breathing hard from the ascent, and broke the rhythm of their footsteps. “I’ve been wrestling with this passage in Ezekiel,” he said. “The Spirit enters him and sets him on his feet—twice, no less—and it feels so… uninvited. Like Ezekiel doesn’t get a say. Where’s his will in all that? God just steps in and takes over.”

His companion nodded slowly, gazing out at the river glinting in the sunlight. “I get why that bothers you. In Ezekiel 2:2 it says, ‘Then the Spirit entered me when He spoke to me, and set me on my feet, and I heard Him who spoke to me.’ And again in 3:24: ‘Then the Spirit entered me and set me on my feet, and spoke with me.’ It’s God’s initiative, no question. Ezekiel falls on his face in the vision, overwhelmed, and the Spirit has to lift him up literally. But think of it like these Gorge winds we feel right now—sudden, strong, filling the canyon without asking permission. They don’t coerce the trees; they move them, enable them to bend and sway. The Spirit doesn’t violate Ezekiel’s will so much as empower him for a task he couldn’t handle on his own. Prophets like Moses or Jeremiah start reluctant too, pushing back, but they end up saying yes. Ezekiel doesn’t resist here; he obeys, which suggests alignment, even if the first move is all divine.”

The first hiker kicked at a loose stone, watching it tumble down the slope. “Okay, but then God tells him to speak—over and over—and then commands silence. It’s contradictory. In 2:7: ‘You shall speak My words to them, whether they hear or whether they refuse.’ And 3:4: ‘Go to the house of Israel and speak with My words to them.’ Yet in 3:26-27: ‘I will make your tongue cling to the roof of your mouth, so that you shall be mute and not be one to rebuke them… But when I speak with you, I will open your mouth.’ Speak boldly, but only when I say so? It feels controlling.”

His friend gestured toward the wind rustling through the wildflowers around them, carrying the faint roar of the river. “That’s the point, I think. The muteness is a sign to a rebellious people who won’t listen anyway. God says in 3:7 that Israel is ‘impudent and hard-hearted’—they won’t hear Him, so why would they hear Ezekiel? The silence symbolizes their spiritual deafness, and it keeps the prophet from speaking out of turn. When God does open his mouth, the words carry weight because they’re timed by divine will, not human impulse. It’s not contradiction; it’s control in a time of judgment. Ezekiel becomes a living parable: the word is sweet like honey when he eats the scroll, but the message is bitter lamentation. He speaks when enabled, stays silent when restrained—total dependence.”

They resumed walking, the trail rising again toward the summit ridge where the views opened even wider. The first hiker glanced sideways. “So it’s about surrender, not coercion? God overpowers to enable, then directs to protect the message?”

“Exactly,” the other replied, pausing to catch the breeze. “Like this hike: we chose to come, but the trail dictates the path, the wind shapes how we move. Ezekiel’s call isn’t about his autonomy first—it’s about God’s glory breaking through a stubborn world. And in the end, he stands, he speaks when told, he waits when told. The tension resolves in trust.”

As they crested the next rise, the full expanse of the gorge unfolded—river, mountains, endless sky—and for a moment the questions hung lighter in the clear air, carried away on the same unpredictable wind.