Bones

 

"Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is Life"

Bones...

that has been a running theme in my life this week.

I'm not sure exactly what God wants me to see here but when attention is brought to the same word over and over...I have to sit up and take notice.   

I recently started watching the tv show, Bones, in which an FBI agent & a forensic anthropologist solve crimes based solely on information that can be extracted from the bones of the victims.   The life of the person is gone, the flesh removed and yet the bones still tell a story.  One of the running themes of the show is how the lead character, aka "Bones" (as she is affectionately called by her partner), scoffs at peoples' belief in God.  She is brilliant and can discern things about dry bones that you'd think impossible yet she is blind to her own "dry bones".

In the midst of watching this show...I have thought a lot about how many people in the world are like her...feeling as though it is irrational to believe in a creator...and how metaphorically they are like those dry bones--each with their own unique story to tell but lacking true "life".   

This week's Scripture reading plan took me through Ezekiel 37...and the vision he had of in the valley of bones.  As Ezekiel is standing in the valley surrounded by an innumerable  amount of "very dry" bones, God asks him, "Can these bones live?"  

Can you imagine?  Naturally, the answer is NO...obviously.  Dr. Brennen would certainly say, 'no'.  But Ezekiel (knowing His God) answered "Only you know!"  And what happened next?!   God asks Ezekiel to speak to the bones on His behalf!  "Tell the bones what I am saying!"  "Tell the bones that I will give them flesh!"  "Now, tell the flesh covered bones that I will give them breath!"   "Now they shall LIVE!"  

Wow!  In Ezekiel he is specifically using this to show what God intended to do with Israel but it is also not a stretch to see this same imagery as applying to what accepting Jesus does for all... "I will put my Spirit in you and you will live"   Obviously it is only God who can bring life but we (like Ezekiel) are asked to speak on God's behalf--telling the "bones" of the one who can breathe them to LIFE!

The following verse from John 6 was spoken on at my cousin's funeral,  "The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing."   In the Ezekiel story, the bones came together and were covered in tendons, flesh, skin--but there was no breath...and thus--no life!  The flesh counts for nothing--only the Spirit gives life.  And WE (God's army--who were also once nothing but dry bones ourselves) have the words others need to hear...Jesus' own words, "The words I have spoken to you--they are full of the Spirit and life."

It was yesterday when I realized that I needed to dig deeper here...                                                            I was listening to worship music in my car and 3 songs nearly in a row referenced the story of the dry bones...so today I wrote this and I pray with humility that God will teach me what I am meant to see.

Dry Bones (Come Alive)

Grave into Gardens

Great I Am