2 When the days of your siege come to an end, burn a third of the hair inside the city. Take a third and strike it with the sword all around the city. And scatter a third to the wind. For I will pursue them with drawn sword. Ezekiel 5
A little later on is the explanation behind these actions. A third of Jerusalem will perish due to plague and famine, a third will die by the sword, and the final third will be scattered.
I still remember my pastor from 20 years ago saying, "When God says something twice, he wants you to pay attention. When he says it three times, you REALLY need to pay attention." That's what's happening here. The punishment is coming in a set of three, to show the city of Jerusalem that they REALLY messed up.
Is this rule-of-three really used any more? I think that it is. One weekend this past winter, my husband and I were going to take the family out to visit his parents. The day before we were to leave, our toddler gets a cold. He was in a good mood, but if you haven't been around a toddler with a cold, let me sum it up for you: SNOT EVERYWHERE! We were still planning on making the trip, but packing lots of tissues. When my husband got home from work, he said he was having some problems with his car so we'd need to take my car out. I was due for an oil change, so I wasn't thrilled about putting 200 more miles on my car, but I agreed. Then, we checked the weather. A huge blizzard was due to hit right at the time we were planning on leaving.
Ok... I think I'm starting to get the message here. My husband thought I was being superstitious about it, but I really did (and still do) believe that God was trying to send us a message. We stayed home that weekend and his parents came to visit two weeks later. Did we avoid a crisis by not traveling out to Cleveland? I don't know. Looking back though, I can see that I needed to see his parents just at that specific time, two weeks after we had originally intended.
I was dealing with post-partum depression. I didn't have any problems with depression after our first child, but this second one was rough on me. The worst of it hit shortly after we canceled the trip to Cleveland, which is when I finally shared with my husband the struggles I was going through. It was a huge blessing that we had already rescheduled to have his parents come visit us because I was able to have some good time talking with my mother-in-law about what was going on with me. She's a pastor, so we were able to discuss this on many levels (mothers, family, pastoral) and she really helped me through that struggle.
When you think God is speaking to you, listen! It may not be that he's trying to make you avoid a certain peril that you don't know about, but he may be putting the pieces in place so that things will be in a better position to help you when you need it. When you start to listen, he may send other things your way to make sure you're paying attention.