Dem Dry Bones

This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. Ezekiel 37:5 (NIV)

“Catherine, if this turkey tastes half as good as it looks, I think we’re all in for a very big treat!”

Well, Clark Griswold was right that the turkey looked good—so good in fact that Cousin Eddie wanted the neck—but it wasn’t a treat the family was in for.

If you’ve ever seen National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, you may remember quite vividly the turkey scene where Clark is standing over the perfectly browned bird, carving knife and fork in hand.  His family is gathered around the holiday table and you just know he’s wanting to dazzle them with his expert carving skills as he anticipates slicing through the tender, perfectly roasted white meat just below the crispy skin’s surface. The camera pans around the table and comes back to Clark where we see him insert the knife into the bird’s skin to make that glorious first slice.

Poof! A plume of smoke rises from the turkey that is now laying busted wide open on the fruit-garnished platter as if it had just been savagely attacked. It is apparent the only thing holding that dry bird together was its skin because there was no meat, moist or otherwise, beneath it. The Griswolds were left with nothing but a bunch of dried bones.

As disappointed as Griswold was, at least it wasn’t a valley of dry bones like the prophet Ezekiel encountered.

During the Israelites’ Babylonian captivity, their second exile, Ezekiel had a vision where he was led out by the spirit of God to the middle of a valley full of nothing but dry bones. These dry bones were symbolic of the Israelites’ hopelessness and despair.

I will give a hardy “Amen!” to nothing robs us of life more than hopelessness and despair.

But what causes our hopelessness and despair?

The same thing that caused the Israelites’ hopelessness and despair—lack of faith! Also known as failure to nurture our faith and/or failure to remember our faith.

I know when I don’t remember or nurture my faith that is when my bones dry up and their distinct rattle is all I can hear because I have experienced a spiritual death.

Here’s what my dry bones can sound like:

“What’s the point in living if all it consists of is suffering?”

“Things are never going to get better.”

“I can’t go on another day like this.”

“I’d be better off dead than living like this.”

And if they don’t rattle like that, they rattle like this:

“What if this new symptom means my MS is getting worse?”

“What if this new symptom means I have a brain tumor too?”

“What will my family do if I can’t do things for them?”

“Will I disappoint them?”

“Will they still love me?”

“Will my husband begin to resent having to take care of me?”

Faith as dry as bones is as good to us as a fur coat in August—useless!

I wonder what your dry bones may sound like because just like the Israelites, we all forget about our faith in God at times—  especially when things are going well—and we walk around with our dry bones rattling in the wind held captive by the enemy, which a lot of times is ourselves.

It is only when we spend time with God in prayer and reading Scripture that we begin to see our dry bones come back to life.

How can this be?

Because it is God who breathes life into our dry bones.

Ezekiel 37:5 says, “This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life.”

Did you know the Hebrews wrote Yahweh, the personal name of God, as YHWH, which is a Tetragrammaton—a four-letter abbreviation? You’ll notice there aren’t any vowels in the Tetragrammaton. I recently saw a video on how to  pronounce this personal name of God with no vowels in it and it blew my mind! I’m going to teach you what I learned.

Take a quick breath in through your mouth and immediately release it through your mouth also. Did you hear it? You just said the name of God.

He IS our breath so of course he can and will breathe life into our dry bones, but we must say His name.  We must remember Him daily and spend time with Him. When we do that we will find that nothing in our life is beyond revival, be it bones or faith.

Friend, God promised to breathe life into the dry bones lying lifeless in The Valley of Dry Bones in Ezekiel’s vision, and He will do the same for our dry bones. All we need to do to begin this revival—to come back from our spiritual death—is breathe in and out.