🙏 What Are You Trusting More Than God? | Ezekiel 29 Devotional (7-Step QT)
7-Step QT Notes
1. 🙏 Quiet Time
Pause.
Take a deep breath.
Ask God to show you where you may be trusting in your own strength, achievements, resources, or relationships more than you trust in Him.
2. 📅 July 23, 2026
Today’s passage reminds us:
No human power lasts forever, but God remains sovereign over every family, workplace, and nation.
3. ✝️ Ezekiel 29:1-16
The LORD opposes Pharaoh, who proudly claims the Nile as his creation. God will make Egypt desolate for forty years and scatter its people because Egypt proved a broken reed to Israel. Afterward, God will gather the Egyptians and return them to Pathros, but they will remain a lowly kingdom and never rule other nations. Israel will no longer rely on Egypt, and all will know that he is the Lord GOD.
4. 📖 Key Verse
And it shall never again be the reliance of the house of Israel, recalling their iniquity, when they turn to them for aid. Then they will know that I am the Lord GOD (v. 16).
5. 📝 Reflection
Ancient world history was one of my favorite subjects in high school. I was always fascinated to observe how ancient nations and peoples repeatedly rose and fell throughout the long record of human history, and how culture and history developed through that process.
In particular, stories about the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World—remarkable structures found mainly around the ancient Mediterranean and Near East—allowed my imagination to soar. Why did people build such structures? How was such construction possible with the technology available at that time? Why did nations powerful enough to erect such magnificent and beautiful monuments disappear until even their traces became difficult to find? These questions continued to lead to still more questions.
Among those wonders, the pyramids of Egypt fascinated me most. Standing on the Giza Plateau west of the Nile River, they are the oldest of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. They are also the only wonder whose original structure has substantially survived to the present day. The Great Pyramid consists of approximately 2.3 million massive stone blocks, and numerous studies and investigations concerning it continue even today. Although much of its basic construction can be explained, questions remain concerning the specific methods and processes employed. Why, then, did Egypt, once powerful enough to build such an enormous pyramid, gradually decline?
Historians explain Egypt’s decline through various factors, including climate change, economic crisis, political division, military competition, and foreign invasion. Today’s passage, however, looks beyond these historical causes and reveals God’s ultimate sovereignty over them all. Egypt was the powerful nation where the Israelites once lived as slaves before God delivered them, and it remained deeply connected to Israel throughout its history. Yet behind Egypt’s decline stood God’s judgment. Pharaoh claimed that the Nile belonged to him and boasted that he had made it, but both the Nile and Egypt’s prosperity ultimately belonged to God. Therefore, even the humbling of Egypt, whose civilization had flourished around the Nile, took place under God’s sovereign rule.
Beloved brothers and sisters, I pray that you will recognize that the rise and fall of families, businesses, and nations all remain under God’s sovereignty. The families, workplaces, and countries to which we belong are never beyond his rule. Therefore, I urge you to pray for your family, your workplace, and your country. Even if a nation, company, or household has a powerful king, leader, executive, or father like Pharaoh, what appears strong can be brought to its weakest point when God opposes it.
Therefore, do not regard strength and prosperity as the products of your own ability. Humbly acknowledge the God who has given you everything. Pray each day that God will show mercy to our families, workplaces, and nation, and that their leaders will abandon pride and follow his will.
6. 💬 What does this passage speak to you today?
- What person, achievement, resource, or institution am I tempted to trust more than God?
- Have I been treating God’s gifts as if they were entirely my own accomplishments?
- What am I leaning on for security when life feels uncertain?
- Which family member, workplace leader, church leader, or public leader will I pray for today?
- How can I acknowledge God’s sovereignty through one practical decision today?
7. 🙏 Prayer
Our heavenly Father, You alone rule over every family, workplace, church, and nation.
Forgive me for trusting in my abilities, achievements, relationships, and resources more than I trust in You.
Help me place my confidence in You alone, because every human power will pass away, but Your sovereign rule will never end.
Please guide the leaders of my family, workplace, church, and country. Lead us according to Your will.
Amen.
Scriptures
📖 (Ezekiel 29:1-16, ESV).
1 In the tenth year, in the tenth month, on the twelfth day of the month, the word of the LORD came to me: 2 “Son of man, set your face against Pharaoh king of Egypt, and prophesy against him and against all Egypt; 3 speak, and say, Thus says the Lord GOD:
“Behold, I am against you,
Pharaoh king of Egypt,
the great dragon that lies
in the midst of his streams,
that says, ‘My Nile is my own;
I made it for myself.’
4 I will put hooks in your jaws,
and make the fish of your streams stick to your scales;
and I will draw you up out of the midst of your streams,
with all the fish of your streams
that stick to your scales.
5 And I will cast you out into the wilderness,
you and all the fish of your streams;
you shall fall on the open field,
and not be brought together or gathered.
To the beasts of the earth and to the birds of the heavens
I give you as food.
6 Then all the inhabitants of Egypt shall know that I am the LORD.
“Because you have been a staff of reed to the house of Israel, 7 when they grasped you with the hand, you broke and tore all their shoulders; and when they leaned on you, you broke and made all their loins to shake. 8 Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I will bring a sword upon you, and will cut off from you man and beast, 9 and the land of Egypt shall be a desolation and a waste. Then they will know that I am the LORD.
“Because you said, ‘The Nile is mine, and I made it,’ 10 therefore, behold, I am against you and against your streams, and I will make the land of Egypt an utter waste and desolation, from Migdol to Syene, as far as the border of Cush. 11 No foot of man shall pass through it, and no foot of beast shall pass through it; it shall be uninhabited forty years. 12 And I will make the land of Egypt a desolation in the midst of desolated countries, and her cities shall be a desolation forty years among cities that are laid waste. I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations, and disperse them through the countries.
13 “For thus says the Lord GOD: At the end of forty years I will gather the Egyptians from the peoples among whom they were scattered, 14 and I will restore the fortunes of Egypt and bring them back to the land of Pathros, the land of their origin, and there they shall be a lowly kingdom. 15 It shall be the most lowly of the kingdoms, and never again exalt itself above the nations. And I will make them so small that they will never again rule over the nations. 16 And it shall never again be the reliance of the house of Israel, recalling their iniquity, when they turn to them for aid. Then they will know that I am the Lord GOD.”
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