an invitation

the Valley of Dry Bones.

that was the message in church today. it tipped me sideways and has been hanging like a heavy backpack on a hook inside my heart all day. so i'm sharing about it here. it was powerful. 

the story comes from an old-testament man named Ezekiel, a priest during a dark time in Israel's history. he is among many living in exile in a foreign country, and is a rallying voice for his people - not mincing words as he calls them back to following their God. after a litany of judgements, God shows Ezekiel this vision about how he will restore them:  

God brought Ezekiel to a valley, set him down right in the middle of it. 

a dry and barren place, a valley full of bones, spread far and wide. 

dry, dry bones. wasted, not a drop of marrow left inside. 

life: gone. death. a valley of death. 

 but God tells him to prophesy, to speak to this valley of dry bones: 

"Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord:

...I will put breath into you, and you will come to LIFE. 

I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin. 

I will put breath in you, and you will come to LIFE.

Then you will know that I am the Lord." 

so in Ezekiel's vision he does exactly this, as crazy impossible as it sounds. 

and as he speaks these words he hears a noise, a rattling across the valley. 

quiet at first, but then louder and louder. and then he sees it: 
bones coming together - bone on bone, then tendons wrapping, 
flesh appearing, skin growing. 

but still no breath in their lifeless lungs. 

so God tells Ezekiel to speak over these breathless bodies,

 these waking dead. to call the four winds to come, to breath life into them,

 that they may rise. and they do.

 a whole valley of bones, now rising. 

those dry bones now pulsing with blood, 

hot soft flesh, breathing: life. 

i can't get this picture out of my head. first, the desolation of a valley of dry cracking lifeless bones. it's so vivid, so graphic: this place so beyond the end of the road. far beyond any resuscitation or return. i can almost taste the parched dry air, hear the whistling wind interrupting the eerie silence. hope:less

and then this image of resurrection. it's so dramatic: a seemingly impossible hope. so ludicrous and beyond counter-intuitive and every bit implausible. yet the picture itself triggered tears in my second-row seat during its' reading this morning. because i heard it, in the middle of the rendering of this crazy vision from an old testament prophet. a dare, if you will, from this wild powerful God I believe in - to believe him for more.  

"This is what the Sovereign Lord says: 

Oh my people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them...

then you will know that I am the Lord, 

when I open your graves and bring you up from them." 

(Ezekiel 37: 12-13)

in this story is a call to bank on that. an invitation to really believe God for that kind of transformation. not just for a mediocre, half-lived, half-breathing, half-healed, semi-content, "good enough" existence. 

                          

                         i've spent a long time on that valley floor, and sometimes, 

                                           in moments of clarity like this morning, i remember that:

                                                        i'm not there anymore.

                 even so, i get stuck in [getting through], slogging through [tired] and [not enough], 

            forgetting that: God doesn't want to leave me all bone and sinew without breath.

                        

                       i'm made for more. we're made for more. 

                                                                       God is bigger than dry bones.

                                                                                    and offers more than half-alive.

this imagery is not mild. it's powerful. and speaks of utter transformation. of a mighty God who takes people flat off the valley floor. God, giver of pulsing back-from-the-dead LIFE.