Are you talking to me?

Yes self, I am talking to you.

(Dear Blog reader, small yet amazingly cool group that you are ;), if you get something out of today's post, Yea! If not just remember sometimes I have to have a heart to heart with myself)

So you think it was a coincidence that you heard the same sermon twice in the past two weeks?

I mean come on, how many times have you heard the "Ezekiel and the dry bones sermon" these days?

Well, not at all lately, to be honest.

And you know you were thinking, "Hey dry bones brought to life by the word of God's prophet in a vision, cool".
But the second time you heard it you were thinking "Weird, is this a personal message?".

Well, yes I was.

You know you have been slogging through a molasses of fear and worry. You know you are grabbing at every branch of Truth about God, to get you through with your Faith intact and (Please, oh, Please) stronger.

"Jesus + nothing = everything"- gave you the boost you needed to feel satisfaction in an uncertain place.

But, the waves continue to roll, the boat isn't steady, and you keep whispering "You see the storm, right, Jesus?".

Yeah, (head down cast) it's true.

So Jesus, patient loving perfection that He is, whispers back "Dry Bones, Kiddo, Dry Bones".

He tells you the story, Ezekiel 37:1-14, like a daddy taking his little girl on his knee.

The battle was over, long over. The ground was littered with an end game story- many dry bones.
He makes the point, we are not talking about a valley of injured people, even critically injured barely clinging to life, no. We are talking about a valley full of DEAD people. Not just DEAD but no flesh on the bones. Bleached bones working on becoming fossils.

"I ressurect DEAD things" He says. I don't just handle hurts and pains, I dig up fragments of things that used to be living and make them into walking talking living things.

^{Ezekiel 37:11} Then he said to me: “Son of man, these bones are the people of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.’ ¹² Therefore prophesy and say to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: My people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel. ¹³ Then you, my people, will know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. ¹⁴ I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the Lord have spoken, and I have done it, declares the Lord.’”

You get what He is saying right? You get His response to the "Woe is us, all hope is gone" talk right?

(Weeping)

If it's His will to dig something or someone out of a grave, He will do it. That's who you serve, kiddo.
If you're His, "Hope is gone" becomes impossible. Not possible. Unable to exist.
You don't have to grab that branch, it grabs you.

I need that, Thanks God, Thanks Holy Spirit, Thanks Jesus- I am so eternally grateful you are here with me.