Can These Dry Bones Live?

Being a “woman of a certain age” I often find myself evaluating my life. Have I done enough? Should I have done more? What’s next? Will my brows grow back? Ha! During one particular evaluation, I decided that I wanted to do more to empower myself and equip those around me with a more excellent way of life. So I went back to school and started a new job.

My new job leans heavily on teamwork. As the team leader, I am ultimately responsible for the overall success of my team. I cannot advance individually and we cannot advance as a team without everyone doing his or her part. While I love the notion of honing my leadership skills and motivating people to excellence, I am both excited and frustrated at the same time. I love watching the success of hard work, the visions and dreams that lead people to a better life, but I am also often frustrated with the complacency in mediocrity that allows others to remain in a daily struggle. Why do we dwell in a hopeless state of mind? Is there any way out?  It reminds me of Ezekiel and the valley of dry bones.

In Ezekiel’s vision, he was in a valley of dry bones. God sat him down right in the midst so that he could see the bones all around him. The bible says that there were “very many of them in the open valley and they were very dry.” God asked Ezekiel if he thought the bones could live. If it were me, I would have shrugged, gave a side eye and neck roll, and said, Psh! Doubt it! (probably why I’m not a prophet, huh?) But Ezekiel left it to God, “O Lord God, you know.” It was at that point that God commanded Ezekiel to prophesy to the bones. I can imagine his frustration in attempting to motivate people that did not want to be motivated, his struggle in trying to speak life to people who wanted to lie down and die, his anguish in striving to move people who were complacent in their current positions.

But God commanded Ezekiel the give the word of the Lord to the dry bones so that they may live.

Ezekiel obeyed God, and the dry bones came to life.

Friends, a lot is going on in our world today. Stress, frustration, disappointments, betrayals, and even the media can overwhelm us and cause us to wind up in a dry place. Toxic relationships and unfulfilled expectations can suck the life out of us and cause us to end up a mere shell of our former selves. Dry bones. In the midst of it all, I admonish you to speak the word of the Lord to the dry places of your life, allow it to saturate those dry bones and bring life.

Don’t give up on God. He has not given up on you. In Ezekiel 37:11-14, God assures Ezekiel that all hope is not lost because his Holy Spirit brings life. “I have opened your graves…..Then you shall know that I, the Lord have spoken it and performed it.”

Speak life.

Live.