August 5th

The Valley of Dry Bones

             The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones.  He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry.  He said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?” I answered, “O Lord God, you know.”  Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.  Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live.  I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the Lord.”

                 So I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone.  I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them. Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.”  I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.

Ezekiel 37:1-10

             

            This is one of the most powerful pictures in all of Scripture.  The prophet Ezekiel is praying and God shows him an old battlefield.  It is the place where countless soldiers lost their lives in battle long ago.  At best, this was the site of a costly victory; more likely it was the remnant of a horrible defeat.  Only old, dry bones remained to testify to the battle that had been waged there.  It was a place of hopelessness, tragedy and loss.

            As Ezekiel stood in that valley, the voice of God came to him and told him to speak life to those bones.  Not knowing what to expect, Ezekiel obeyed.  The bones rattled and moved and then joined together, soon covered by sinew and then muscle and then skin.  Soon life and breath returned and the valley that had just been a desolate graveyard that spoke of loss and grief was transformed into a place of vibrancy and hope by the God of Resurrection.  God went on to tell Ezekiel that his vision was a picture of the restoration that He would bring to His people who had suffered so deeply and lost so much.

            This life that we lead…it is hard.  There are battles that we fight with our family.  There are battles that we fight with the world.  There are battles that we fight with ourselves.  We do not always win and sometimes there are casualties.  Those casualties could be broken relationships.  They could be hopes that were crushed or dreams that were dashed.  They could be losses that left long-term scars on our bodies and our minds and our hearts.  There are places inside our souls that resemble Ezekiel’s Valley of Dry Bones…where a significant part of us died upon the battlefield.  We have learned to move on, how to function as an adult and a Christian and a parent, even though our heart has not been fully intact for a long period of time.  The losses are just memories now, dry bones that tell a story that we have no desire to revisit.

            Into that valley of despair walks the God of Resurrection.  He invites us to dare to hope.  He calls us to speak life to the dead places, to breathe new life into the parts of our hearts that have been dormant for years.  That could be reviving a relationship that we had given up on.  That could be pursuing a dream that we long ago abandoned.  That could be allowing ourselves to feel and laugh and mourn instead of locking everything away.

            That could be an invitation to hope for our children once again.  Before they were born…before the diagnosis…when they were just a twinkle in our eyes, we had hopes about the lives that they would have.  We had hopes about what they would do and where they would go and who they would marry and what their future would hold.  For many of us, that hope has died, replaced by the duties and pressures of each new day.  What are they eating?  Are they having a seizure?  What new emergency will rear its head today?

            Those are all important questions to ask and important things to know.  However, there is more that can occupy our attention than crisis management.  Perhaps God is inviting you back to the valley where you used to hope and dream for your son or daughter.  Perhaps He is inviting you to rekindle the hopes and dreams that you had for them.  Yes, the details will likely be different.  But the excitement that we had for them…the hope that we had for them…the joy that we had as we thought about the life that they could have…The God of Resurrection can bring that all back from the dead.

            It is what He does.

  

A moment to reflect:

What areas of pain and loss might God want to resurrect into joyful life?