Four living creatures

Some things in the Bible I find a bit strange. Then I don't pay too much attention to that, but move on and read something else. I am sure it all makes sense I just don't get it at the time or it doesn't appeal to me at the moment. Later I can read the same scripture and it is like the passage pops out from the page and comes alive to me.

I had one of those aha-moments the other week as I was reading the first chapter of Ezekiel. It describes a powerful vision the prophet had of God and the activity going on around His throne with different living creatures and flashes of lightning etc. These creatures always seemed weird and pointless to me, like taken from a science fiction movie, type Star wars, that I am completely uninterested in. I could not see what they had to do with my life at all.

But the other week when I read the passage again all of a sudden it made sense. Of course, these creatures need faces in every direction so they never need to take their eyes off of God. He is so beautiful and marvelous so they cannot afford missing out on any aspect of Him. To make that point even clearer they move around on wheels that are covered in eyes. And the wheels are so high that they are dreadful. All these eyes serve that same purpose - to gaze on God. And they are covered in eyes! One pair of eyes is far from enough. There are so many aspects of God and such depth, so much splendor, awesomeness, beauty and all kinds of other adjectives forever and ever so the only words to rightfully describe Him is "Holy, Holy, Holy".

These creatures are constantly on the move. Actually they are running back and forth like flashes of lightning. I never reflected on the enormous power, energy and activity that is going on before the throne of God. I typically visualize it as a sort of quiet, peaceful and reverent place, but these creatures don't stand still. I bet God doesn't stand still either. It is explosive! There is so much life!