“How weak-willed you are, declares the Sovereign Lord, when you do all these things…” (Ezekiel 16:30)

Ezekiel 16 is said to be an allegory of Jerusalem’s unfaithfulness to God. Jerusalem turned away from her husband (God) to run after her lovers (idols, other nations). When God looks at how she behaves He declares “How weak-willed you are… !”. I may be wrong, but that’s probably not what most people would say of someone who acts like Jerusalem nowadays. For instance, a woman who leaves her husband to run after success, career, lovers, so-called happiness; this woman wouldn’t be said to be “weak-willed” (and the same goes for a man). Men and women are usually almost praised for getting out relationships in order to achieve or find their own happiness. And this applies for anything else, you don’t need to break a relationship necessarily, you can simply spend less time and energy with a friend, your kids, etc. because your heart is after something else that does not include these people. People truly believe that what is most important is personal happiness, no matter if it hurts people around or not (although there are some boundaries when it comes to physically hurting people). Society says that seeking personal happiness is not being weak-willed, it’s actually the opposite.

What remains is that God calls unfaithfulness to Him to be weak. Unfaithfulness is the work of weak-willed people, because they are not willing to put aside their own view of what happiness should be, and follow God’s view of happiness. We are weak-willed not necessarily for looking for happiness, but for not believing that God knows what we need and refuse to simply trust and accept God’s will for us. Sometimes it seems that God’s will for His children is quite boring and rather hard. It doesn’t please our sinful nature. Well, we need to persevere, knowing that “We live by faith, not by sight”. (II Corinthians 5:7)

Hey look, I’ve got a twin brother!