Ezekiel 37:1-5
Most of us have something we’ve quit praying about. Not on purpose. We just stopped. There was a name we used to bring up every night, and somewhere along the way we let it go quiet. We never decided it was hopeless. We just got tired of asking.
God sets Ezekiel down in the middle of a valley, and the valley is full of bones. “And he led me around among them, and behold, there were very many on the surface of the valley” (Ezekiel 37:2, ESV). Then comes the detail that matters. “And behold, they were very dry” (Ezekiel 37:2, ESV). Not fresh. Not recent. These had been lying there a long time.
Then the question. “Son of man, can these bones live?” (Ezekiel 37:3, ESV). Ezekiel doesn’t answer it. He hands it back. “O Lord God, you know” (Ezekiel 37:3, ESV). It’s an honest answer. Standing in a valley of bones, it may be the only honest one.
So the Lord answers his own question. “Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live” (Ezekiel 37:5, ESV).
This is one of the better known passages in the Old Testament. We’ve heard it in sermons and gospel meetings for years, and most of the time we hear it as a passage about the dead coming back. It is that. But it’s more. These bones weren’t freshly buried. They were dry. Scattered. Long gone. God isn’t only raising the dead here. He’s bringing back something everybody had written off.
Israel had written themselves off. “Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are indeed cut off” (Ezekiel 37:11, ESV). That isn’t poetry. That’s how it actually felt.
We know the feeling. The marriage that went cold. The faith that used to mean something. The son or daughter who hasn’t walked through the church doors in years. We tell ourselves we’re just being realistic. What we’ve really done is decide God’s reach has a limit, and we’ve drawn that line right at the edge of the thing that hurts most.
Jesus put that idea to rest. “With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God” (Mark 10:27, ESV). All things. Not most of them.
God’s providence keeps working whether we see it or not. Usually we don’t see it. A valley of dry bones looked like the end of the story, and God was standing right in the middle of it, about to start over. “Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning” (Psalm 30:5, ESV).
So here’s the question for the week. What have we quit praying about? Whatever that name is, it’s worth saying out loud again tonight. Nothing has been dry too long for the breath of God.
