Dry Bones
[image error]The long torturous hours of tax season is hitting its peak. Long days, turn into long nights and then repeat, repeat and repeat. It is easy to feel overwhelmed when the light at the end of the tunnel feels more like a speeding train about to run you over than a welcoming ray of hope. It’s so easy to get discouraged when you can’t see any progress. I wonder if this is how the builders of the Great Wall of China or the Great Pyramids felt? It is believed that the Great Pyramids took 20 to 30 years. And the longest segment of the Great Wall is believed to have taken 200 years. Can you imagine that? Working on one project day in and day out for a majority of your adulthood in Egypt. Then consider working on the Great Wall in China and then your children and their children and possibly their children working on the same Wall. To work so hard and never see the finish product. At least with most of our jobs, agendas, deadlines there is an end date in sight. Not an elusive finish line you cannot see. It may be hard the next week and a half, but it’s only a week and a half, not 30 years. I should cling to the hope that even though I’m tired, God’s can take dry bones and give them life.
I love that analogy. When I think of dry bones, I picture crypts of dusty bones with spiderwebs covering every part of them. It’s hard to see life in a pile of lifeless bones, and I wonder if that is what God sees when He looks at us. We may be alive, but on the inside we are just a pile of dead, dry bones, worn and tired by life. It is so reassuring that throughout the Scriptures no one ever had an easy life without any hardship or pain. If you flip through the pages you will read accounts after accounts of people crying out to God for help, protection, mercy, peace, grace, love, hope, stability, freedom, and provision. When God’s people cried out, they were heard. They may not have received exactly what they were praying for, but God showed up and provided what they needed. He saw their dry bones and breathed His life giving breath into their hearts to continue on. He still does that. If God can cause a valley of dry bones to form an army, He can stir life into our dry hearts.
A song that keeps resonating to me is Here Again by Elevation Worship. The bridge at the end of the song is an anthem of my heart to God’s ears.
Not for a minute
Was I forsaken
The Lord is in this place
The Lord is in this place
Come Holy Spirit
Dry bones awaken
The Lord is in this place
The Lord is in this place
You may feel tired, beaten, worn out, defeated, but remember you were never forsaken. You may feel left for dead, but you are not. He is always beside you. You may feel lost and in the dark, but He is there waiting with you. You may feel worthless like a pile of dry bones, but I can hear God saying, “Worthless? Worthless? I don’t create worthless creations, I create priceless masterpieces. You are a stunning creation! You are My beloved! Never call yourself worthless, my child. Never.”
May God breath into your hearts. May He stir the coals in your soul to have a passionate fire burn for Him. May you realize you are fearfully and wonderfully made. May you sense you are loved to death, for Christ loved you enough to die for you. So, take a deep breath, dust off your dry bones and start afresh tomorrow. God’s mercies are new every morning…you just have to find them. If you look, you’ll find them.
Peace
