Come Awake…(Ezekiel 37)
Breathe in. Feel your heartbeat. Feel alive. This idea has become something that all people desire—to be truly alive. We want to breathe in, feel the beat inside our chest and be alive. We want to feel that thing inside of us, that reassuring curiosity that reminds us that there is something more. But how do we become alive and feel this? How do we breathe, if we aren’t alive YET? What causes us to breathe?
A desert. The beating sun had bleached and dried everything in sight. Nothing could withstand its heat and torment. In the midst of this desert was a valley that consisted of nothing but death. There was no life in existence…except for the one viewing this scene. Ezekiel stood before this valley where he stared death in its grim face. As he stood in the valley, an army lay dead with their bones scattered and dry. But what I find so unfathomable was not this scene of death but rather the event that took place next. As Ezekiel stood there in his own humanity, the Lord asked him a question, “Ezekiel, Son of Man, can these bones live?” Ezekiel answered “Lord you alone know.” Ezekiel answered in that manner because he knew that this situation was before him and yet he had no idea what the right answer was. I have often pondered what I would say in that situation. But it also goes much deeper than Ezekiel’s response. After answering the Lord as well as obeying his commands, Ezekiel watched as thousands of bones rattled together to restore themselves back to their original bodies. But this question soon follows:
“Could it be restored? Could there be life again where life has totally departed? Can strength and movement and energy and awareness and responsiveness somehow reappear in those who are so utterly dead that their bodies have decayed away, leaving nothing but bones-even those very bones have been disconnected, bleached and dry?’
(Tony Evans)
Can something that has no breathe come to life? That’s been my question for so long. It has also been my challenge. Daily I see people as well as myself who just seem lifeless without breath. Sometimes I have just sat down feeling empty, even weary because there was a lack of something in my life. It’s as if I were one of those dead soldiers in the desert. I am dry and bleached by the sun and its heat. My bones have been corroded and disconnected from the rest of me…and I no life. At times I feel like it’s a deep sleep or a coma that has come upon me. But that’s where this breath can come in. As much or as often as I feel empty, dry, dead, lifeless—my Lord, my God has the power to breathe life back into me. He can raise me up to where he wants me to go. He can shake my life and breathe life back into me when I feel dead.
I am not sure why I wrote this. I know it’s a theme and message that has been on my heart for myself for quite a while, but I know there are others who might need this. I know there are people that might read this that feel empty or dead; that feel so worthless that what’s that point of living. Others have no idea where to turn because you have no direction. But God can put back the broken pieces (bones) of your life together again. He can restore you. Let him breathe in you so you can come awake.
beyond the mundane 