There is Always Hope

There is always hope.

So I prophesied as I was commanded. There was a sound when I prophesied – I heard a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to bone. As I watched, I saw tendons on them, then muscles appeared, and skin covered over them from above, but there was no breath in them. He said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, – prophesy, son of man – and say to the breath: ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these corpses so that they may live.’”

So I prophesied as I was commanded, and the breath came into them; they lived and stood on their feet, an extremely great army.

If you’re unfamiliar with this Bible story, allow me to provide a little context.

Here we find Ezekiel, a prophet in the Bible, being given a vision directly from God. In this vision he is brought upon a valley that is filled with dry bones.

Let me reiterate; these aren’t just dead bodies or corpses - they are bones.

Not even fresh bones, they’re DRY bones.

And in this vision God asks Ezekiel a very powerful and challenging question, and a question which completely changed my life a few years ago when God asked me the same thing.

God asked him, “Can these dry bones live?”

Before I tell you what Ezekiel answered, and what God then did, allow me to share the story of when God asked me.

I was walking down the street (in fact, I can still point out the exact plant I was looking at in the garden bed) when this question rose in my heart. It wasn’t audible, meaning the people I was walking with didn’t hear it. But it was “internally audible”, meaning it was as though I heard it on the inside.

I’d just found out some really confronting and awful information about someone in the news. This person had messed up, and messed up bad, and it had just been discovered and gone public. 

My initial reaction was the need to vomit at the information.

Then a wave of emotions; anger, disgust, disappointment, shock.

I felt it all.

And as I walked down that street, my mind and heart quickly filling with judgement towards the person… God suddenly asked me the question.

“Can these dry bones live?”

Remember how I shared that the valley wasn’t just filled with corpses, it was filled with dry bones? Well that was what God began speaking to me about.

He reminded me that once a body is dead…they’re dead!

Once someone is classified “medically dead” (aka : it’s too late for CPR etc), then their story is over. There’s nothing the world can do.

So whether someone has been medically dead for a day or for a decade - it doesn’t make any difference in terms of the impossibility of bringing them back to life.

So when God asked Ezekiel if the dry bones could live again, He was effectively asking if Ezekiel believed the same God who could heal someone who is sick, who could revive someone who’s been dead for a few days…. Could He also bring back to life an army that’s now just a stack of bones?

And that’s exactly what Ezekiel believed!

Ezekiel began speaking life to the dry bones, just as God commanded.

And the bones began to come together. Then flesh began to cover them. Then God breathed life and this army was revived!

God challenged me in that moment to look at the person in the news the same as Ezekiel looked at that valley.

If it’d been a valley of sick people, God could heal them.

If it’d been a valley of newly-dead people, God could revive them.

If it was a valley of the driest of dry bones, God could bring them back to life.

If the person in the paper had told a little white lie, God’s grace and forgiveness was enough for them.

If the person in the paper had stolen a car, God’s grace and forgiveness was enough for them.

If the person in the paper had committed a terrible crime, God’s grace and forgiveness was enough for them.

Whether the neighbours in our community are sick, dead or even dry bones… God wants us to be Ezekiels in 2025 that imagine and speak life.

We should be speaking life into our homeless shelters, our prisons, our palliative care centres, our rehab centres, EVERY valley that’s got a dry bone which the world has given up hope for… we can be the Ezekiel.

That’s my challenge for me.

That’s my challenge for you.

Don’t ever judge a dry bone; just speak life.

Don’t ever give up on a dry bone; just speak life.