Valleys: Find Courageous Conviction in Life’s LowsSample

Resurrecting Hope When Your Confidence in God Is Lost

Up until this point, the valleys we’ve studied together have been battlefields or the locations where shadows cast doubt on our future. In Ezekiel 37, we see a much darker kind of valley. The Valley of Dry Bones, in Ezekiel 37, is imagery for a hopeless people—but it does not leave them there. In the middle of a graveyard, death is resurrected to a new confidence in God.

I’m rattled by the morbid scene in Ezekiel 37, where the prophet stands in the middle of an open grave of dry bones. Would Ezekiel be breathing in bone dust and choking on the stench of death? Ew. Did the wind sweep up bone debris into his eyes and cause them to water? I can’t. If he moved, did he hear the snap, crackle, and pop of bones? Ick. Imagining this moment in Ezekiel’s life reminds me of the brittle bones Indiana Jones climbs over to seek his treasure or the Marvel Avenger dust Thanos creates after mass murder––it’s too much for me to handle.

The good news is that God is the Genesis Creator and Beginning Maker. He can breathe life into newly formed bodies or, in the case of Ezekiel 37, life into dead bodies to remake what death has destroyed. This is good news for those of us who can hear death knocking. This is good news for those of us mourning the burial of a dream.

Remaining unburied after death was considered a curse in Ezekiel’s day. When God chooses to use the gravesite of unburied Israelites soldiers as the setting to teach Ezekiel about resurrection, he is also showing God’s people that, even if the Mesopotamians were right about the curse upon the unburied, the God of Israel breaks every curse with life after death––burial or not.

Maybe that’s how the exiled Israelites felt about their longing for their land––maybe they felt like unburied fallen soldiers, cursed by God. Maybe that’s how you feel.

Cursed or not, buried or not—if you know Jesus as Savior, God’s resurrection power cannot and will not be diminished or restrained in your life, ever.

Let’s not forget that Ezekiel had to stand on dry bones before seeing God breathe new life into resurrected bodies––this is the paradoxical way Ezekiel’s story unfolds. Maybe that’s how it goes for all of us. We hold in tension the beauty of resurrection against a backdrop of death. Because resurrection is only necessary if we go through death. We must face the weight and terror of death to behold the beauty of resurrection. The two are inextricably linked.

Whatever God stirred up in your soul this week, know this: You can feel the burden of hardship while also being caught up in God's joyful, hope-restoring move.

Resurrection is your future. God is giving Ezekiel and everyone listening to his sermons a vision for Israel’s future. God is restoring hope lost. And through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, he can do that for you, too.

Prayer: God, Sometimes it’s hard to see past all of the darkness in this world. Help me to fix my eyes and hope on the promise of the resurrection, trusting that even if everything around me seems dead, you are the Giver of Life. In Jesus’ name, Amen