It's easy to love something quietly. We can believe deeply, read consistently, let God's Word genuinely change us, and still go weeks without saying any of it out loud to another person.
Most of us aren't hiding our faith. We just rarely bring it up. Over time, quiet starts to feel like a personality trait instead of a choice we keep making. That was at the heart of Pastor Ben Norvig's message from Ezekiel 3. God gave Ezekiel a scroll and told him to eat it, and then to carry its message to people who had already decided not to listen. Both halves of one assignment.
Eat the Word
Ezekiel 3 says the scroll tasted as sweet as honey. What's surprising is what was written on it. One chapter earlier, the scroll is described as covered with funeral songs, words of sorrow, and pronouncements of doom. Not encouragement. Not a promise. A hard word for people who did not want to hear it.
Sweet anyway. That's the claim worth sitting with. The parts of Scripture that convict us, correct us, or ask something of us aren't the exception to its sweetness. They're part of it, the way a parent's discipline is part of their love rather than a break from it.
But eating isn't the same as receiving. Thomas Jefferson famously took a razor to his own Bible, cutting out the miracles and keeping the moral teaching. "The man ate the word of God," Pastor Ben said, "but he didn't allow it to set in." Most of us don't own a razor. We own a reading plan. We hit play, check the box, and move on, and the words never make it from the page to anywhere that costs us something. It's like reading the instruction manual for a crib every morning and never assembling the crib.
God's instruction to Ezekiel was specific on this point. Let the words sink deep into your own heart first. Listen carefully for yourself. First, and then go.
Strengthened by the Word
God tells Ezekiel plainly that nobody is going to listen. Then He says He has made Ezekiel's forehead as hard as the hardest rock, and sends him anyway. That's a strange kind of encouragement, and it's not the one we usually ask for. We want the conversation to go well. God offers something else: the strength to have it whether it does or not.
If you've ever been called stubborn, strong-willed, or hard to move, that may not be a flaw you need to apologize for. It might be exactly what God intends to use. This isn't permission to go looking for arguments. The strength was never ours to manufacture in the first place. "If they're bold in their unbelief," Pastor Ben said, "we'll be more bold in our belief."
Strength also has to be tested to grow. Lifting the same weight every day for years will keep you comfortable, but you'll never find out what you were actually capable of.
Share the Word
This is the part most of us stall on.
Pastor Ben held up three sizes of the same bag of candy. The regular pack is the faith we keep: real, personal, genuinely life-changing, and almost completely invisible to the people around us. "The normal pack is not intended to be shared."
The sharing size looks generous and often isn't. We talk freely, but only with people who already believe what we believe, and the circle never actually gets any wider.
Then there's the party size. A child in our kids ministry asks his parents whether they're going to "the Jesus party," and he isn't wrong. The party size is for people who have no reason to assume they'd be welcome at all. Tax collectors. Outcasts. The ones everyone else had already written off. That's the size Jesus used.
Faith Was Never Meant to Stay Private
Sharing our faith doesn't require becoming angry at people who don't share it. The harder assignment is caring enough about someone to have an honest conversation while keeping our hearts soft toward them.
The point isn't to tell people they're wrong. It's to point them to the One who is right. That starts with letting God's Word do its work in us. Then we move toward people instead of staying inside the circles that are already comfortable. And when fear shows up, we remember that the response was never ours to control.
Think about one person in your life who might be surprised to know how much your faith means to you. You don't need a speech or the perfect words. Start by praying for them, stay open to the opportunity, and be willing to let your faith be part of the conversation when the moment comes.
Eat the Word. Let it strengthen you. Then share it. And trust God with what happens next.
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