Can These Bones Live?

God asks us this, not the other way around. I don't think I ever realized that. In this well-known passage in Ezekiel 37, it's not the prophet that asks if dry bones can live, but God asks him this.

Why does God ask us a question? Why would God ask this if He knew He could turn bones into an army?

I think perhaps He was calling out faith. God can do miracles in our lives, but what's the point of doing miracles if we miss out on the greater gift...? the Gift of knowing the bigness, the wonder and the sovereignty of God?

I think God had to engage the prophet in this way. He made him come face-to-face with the death, the nothingness, the dryness of that valley. The word says, God led him "back and forth" through the valley.

Why would God make him go back and forth, face-to-face with the stench of zero? And in the midst of that ask him if these bones can live?

What is the greater thing God calls out of us when we are in the valley? 

In this passage, it's faith, not just any faith, but a courage to come face-to-face with nothing and believe that in the midst of this, God is.

God is. 

Of course the prophet answers in a self-preserving, sort of detached way:"Only You know God." I mean it sounds holy and humble, but to me, it also has the sting of resignation in it. "Well, how would I know? Everything is dead. Obviously only you know God."

What does God do when we have resigned to the outcome? When we have allowed our reality to overshadow His greater Reality?

He shows up and shows off! That's what God does. And in His infinite grace, He uses us to glorify Himself.

God could have just caused the dry bones to come to life on His own, but He did it through the prophet. He allowed the prophet to prophesy to the bones to cause life to spring forth.

God is so gracious to use ordinary beings to manifest His glory. 

And as this miracle happens, not only does the prophet see it, but he hears it. He said, and there was a sound. 

What does it sound like when life overcomes death? When miracles spring up? When fruit is borne out of nothingness?

I want to be a person who can behold this sound, even before I see it.

Can we be people of the sound?

This miracle is so layered because the word then says that the bones came together with muscle, flesh and skin, but they had no breath.

That's a terrifying picture don't you think? They were like zombie people or something, alive in body, but dead in soul?

So sometimes miracles happen in stages. 

Bones turned into skin and flesh, but they weren't actually alive yet.

Breath had to be called upon and it says, the breath not only brought them to life, but the bones became an exceedingly vast army.

Bones to army. Death to life. Dryness to breath.

Why didn't the bones come together and also have breath all at once? Why the stages?

Perhaps it was to highlight the importance of the breath or otherwise known as the spirit.

The spirit wasn't the same as flesh, skin and muscle. It was other. An entity in of itself.

And then God talks about open graves.

Open graves.

Where are the areas in our lives where we need open graves? Where we want the sting of death to be broken? Where we want barrenness to be shattered and that grave opened forever?

And then God talks about lands, being brought back, being settled. All for His glory: so that you may know I am God. 

What is my so that you may know?

What is the area in my life that God wants total glory and credit for?

Our so that you may know is often the deepest grave, the driest place, the loneliest valley, the most "bony" place. It is in these places that God arises. It is in these places that He awakens faith and asks:

Can these bones live?