Speak To The Dry Bones

It was Ezekiel, one of God’s prophets, who wrote these haunting words:

“Then he said to me, “Speak a prophetic message to these bones and say, ‘Dry bones, listen to the word of the LORD!” Ezekiel 37:4.

Speak to the dry bones? To the things that have died?

What for?

I mean, can you imagine? Why would God ask such an impossible thing?

(Is it possible He wanted Ezekiel to believe that He is The God of Impossible Things?)

The Bible does say that nothing is too hard for Him. (Jeremiah 32:17)

You can look it up. It’s in there.

So Can I ask you another difficult question?

Have you got any “dry bones” in your life? Are there some ruined hopes, or lost dreams, that you have let go of believing them to be long dead? Believing they are beyond any hope of resurrection?

(I do.)

There are times when I walk there—among my ruins—wondering why things didn’t turn out differently. And I’m full of questions when I go there. Wondering why I made the choices that I did? Why did others? Why didn’t God intervene like I prayed He would?

(Yeah, I do. I go.)

And I decided to ask God to give me some new places with new dreams…

Believing that the lost dreams I’d buried back yonder were never going to be more than sad and distant memories.

But you know what?

Jesus keeps leading me back.

Pointing to the place of dry bones.

Jesus keeps reminding me that He is The God of EVERYTHING—even My Ruins and Dead Dreams.

That may sound a little strange to you.

(It certainly does to me.)

Look, I don’t know about you, but those places in my soul where all my dry bones are stored? Those are places where I simply don’t want God (or anyone else) to go. Too much pain. Too much sadness.

These are the places where I’ve been known to say, “Leave it alone, please!” 

(Yes, I talk to God like that.)

But His love is relentless

So He takes me to a verse in my Bible, like Matthew 19:26—the one where Jesus was talking to His disciples—and suddenly, I feel like He is talking to this disciple.

Jesus looked at them intently and said, “Humanly speaking, it is impossible. But with God everything is possible.”

Yeah, God will speak to you through His Word, and lately Jesus has been speaking intently to me…

About dry and dead places in my life. The impossible places. The places I made my peace with and then moved on.

These are places He wants me to prophesy to.

(Places I let go of a long, long, time ago.)

He keeps whispering, “With Me everything is possible.”

And in my head? I know it’s true.

But in my heart? I’m afraid to hope again.

And you know what?

Jesus is just standing there… smiling at me from outside that empty tomb… like He does every Easter about this time.

He looks into my eyes (and into my heart) and whispers again,

…“Didn’t I tell you that you would see God’s glory if you believe?” John 11:40

(Jesus has asked me this before. Lots of times.)

So let me ask you.

Is it time for you to believe again? Trust again?

Is there a place in your soul where you are really afraid to hope again?

Does it seem too late, too impossible, for that dream to live?

Maybe it’s time to say to your dry bones, “Come Alive!”

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