"The Eternal One had a hold on me and I couldn't escape it. The divine wind of the Eternal One picked me up and set me down in the middle of the valley, but this time it was full of bones. God led me through the bones. There were piles of bones everywhere in the valley - dry bones left unburied." (Ezekiel 37:1-2 voice translation).
Have you ever felt like you were stuck in a place of hopelessness and discouragement?Have you ever come into a season of your life where you felt that you were constantly surrounded by situations that drained the life out of you spiritually, physically, and emotionally? I know I have. In fact, I believe that these questions are a good place to start our journey together as we discover what it means to have the hope of Jesus Christ alive and active in our lives.
In order to understand the hope that we can have in Jesus Christ in our lives, we need to find out why God leads us into our own valley of dry bones. When I look at the scripture above, I think about how the valley represents the hard seasons that we walk through in life. The dry bones represent the situations that we go through during those hard seasons. I know I personally have been walking through a valley of dry bones with the Lord the last few months. My dry bones are the pain and heartache of losing my mother suddenly from a fall that she had at work where she hit her head on a shelf and broke her nose. The next day she passed away because of blood clots in her lungs and bleeding in her brain. Another pile of my dry bones is that two of my great aunts, my grandfather's sisters, passed away a few weeks after my mother did which was also really hard on my family. Now it feels as though another pile of dry bones is being added to my valley. My grandfather, the one who lost his daughter who was my mother and his two sisters all within a few weeks of each other, had a stroke and ended up in the hospital for two months which really had an affect on both his mental and physical health on top of everything else he has been dealing with this year. Then he was also diagnosed with brain cancer just a couple of weeks ago where the doctors told us that he might only have six months left to live.
Maybe you can resonate with my family's valley. Maybe you are currently walking through your own valley right now with piles of your own dry bone circumstances that feel like they are surrounding you on every side and that there is no hope in whatever it is that you are going through. Maybe you feel like me where within the past year every where you turn it looks like another pile of bones has been added to your valley as you walk through your hard season. Trust me, I totally understand how that is because I am currently living through it.
But I am here to tell you that the valley is not where your story ends. This is just the beginning of where we are going on this hope-filled journey of ours. You see, when Ezekiel was whisked away by the divine wind of God and God set Ezekiel's feet in the valley of dry bones, he didn't intend for Ezekiel to stay stuck in the valley. And God certainly didn't have him walk through it alone. The scripture says that God led Ezekiel through the bones. Which means that there was a purpose for what Ezekiel was experiencing and walking through. The purpose of walking through the valley was so that God could bring Ezekiel to a place where he would be able to see and experience the Spirit of God working in a place that appeared to have no life or hope in it. Often times, we look at our situations with physical eyes and get discouraged because we only see what appears to be a place in our lives where there seems to be no life or hope that we can hold onto to get us through our circumstances. However, if we only look at situations with our physical eyes then we will never see the miracles, the hope, and the life God wants to breath into our situation by the power of his spirit. If we want to be strengthened and encouraged in our faith, then we need to look up to the heavens to the one from where our help comes from, and not look at the situation through our own understanding. Rather we should release our dry bone circumstances to God through prayer so that we can see his glory and wonder working power work within them.
Today, I want you to feel encouraged in knowing that whatever situation you are walking through right now, whatever valley of dry bones you are experiencing, God has a plan and a purpose for it. And God wants to use it to bring hope to you and to others around you so that others can also know how good God is. As Jeremiah 29:11 says, "I know the plans I have for you," says the Eternal, "plans for peace, not evil, to give you a future and hope - never forget that."
I encourage you, as we take the next few steps together on our hope-filled journey, to write a letter to God about what you are going through in your valley and ask him to show you areas of your life where he has come along side you and walked with you through the hard seasons. Ask him to open up your spiritual eyes so that you can see his wonder working power already working even in the midst of the valley of dry bones you are walking through today. Write down a statement of release in your letter to God and give your dry bones to him so that he can breathe new life into your situations.
Dear Lord, I pray that you would show me your wonder working power in the midst of the valley of my dry bones. Thank you for always walking with me, never leaving me or forsaking me. Because you are always walking with me, I know that I can be encouraged of the hope that I can find in you. I release my dry bone circumstances to you today and I ask that you help me to see with my spiritual eyes so that I can see your goodness in my valley of dry bones. In Jesus name, Amen.
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