My “To Do” list for when I get to Heaven is growing.  The first hundred years, I want to stand on the Mount of Olives overlooking the New Jerusalem and praise God for His faithfulness and loving kindness and mercy to me.  Then I have to find Ezekiel.  I have to tell him that I read his book, and that what he said set me free from believing that I was under a curse from my father.  I don’t know if hugs are allowed in Heaven, but if they are, I have a bear hug for him.

In Ezekiel 18, the Lord tells Ezekiel to stop using the proverb that the father eats sour grapes and the children’s teeth are set on edge.  God tells him that if a man lives in disobedience to God’s ways, he will die for his sins.  But if this man’s son turns from the father’s ways and lives in obedience, that son will live.  Then, if the son has a son who turns to disobedience, the first son will live, but the grandson will die.  I don’t have to worry anymore about what my father did or what my sons have done.  I am only responsible for my own choices.

In my book, “Choosing Life,” I told the story of my father and his pursuit of everything base and wicked.  He deliberately trained his conscience to accept everything he wanted to do.  It started, as it always does, with little things.  An affair with a neighbor, holding a grudge against someone who wronged him, real or imagined.  Practicing using profanity at work when he was alone, with the noise of the machinery covering his words.  It grew, as it always does, to walking the hall at night plotting revenge.  Firing his cousin, a former alcoholic, the day before Christmas.  The cousin left, got drunk,  drove off a bridge, and died.  My father abandoned his wife and disowned his daughter, his only child.    Many lives were ruined with his lies.  So, if you are that one, turning to wicked ways, Ezekiel has hope for you, also.  Stop it!  Start doing what you know is right in God’s eyes, and you will live.  Anything done before you turn to God is forgotten and forgiven.  You might be looking for Ezekiel in Heaven some day, too.