I see them everywhere… all around my city… my state… dry bones. Dry bones that once were connected to each other, when they weren’t dried out, but were full of life. They were once part of a body with life flowing into them, and through them to the other bones. They had such potential as part of that body… to grow individually, to grow together … to change their part of this world by living truth-in-love to each other and to those outside that body. But…
… but now they lie there… dry… disconnected… wondering where the life went… where the love went. Some have been disconnected and dry for so long that their period of connection - of life in that body - seems like a distant dream. Other dry bones remember connection more clearly, just as they remember their dis-connection clearly. Whether from hurt, boredom or distraction… they disconnected but they never meant to get like this.
From 30,000 feet up my city looks like a spiritual boneyard. The dry bones sometimes remember the life that once flowed in them, or at least hearing about how life flowed long, long ago among the first Jesus-followers. Wow… if only life here and now could be like that. But, the dry bones don’t see how. They are suspicious of the “snake oil” and “cure all” tonics they’ve been shown before… how if they would only come under this tent, or that tent, or pledge this, buy that, attend this… yeah, yeah, yeah… heard it, don’t buy it. So, the disillusionment continues… dry, disconnected and distrustful of others and their motives. Maybe this is just what happens to bones over time… they just fall away from each other and dry out…? But…
… but… the book of Acts shows a body full of life, connection… love, hope and struggles to live this new life Jesus came to give us all. Can we have that life in us right here and now? Can we know the love, life and power they knew – with real struggles and challenges too – in our own experience? Can these dry bones live again? Really?
Yes, they can. Dry bones can live again. They must come together and be connected so life can move through them. Before they will come together a core issue must be dealt with in the clearest possible terms. Motive. Motives of any who call out for these bones to come together must be clear, straightforward and unchanging. Mixed motives, tinged with selfish ambition, will be sniffed out and rejected. Only a single pure motive will do – the motive to surrender to God completely and live out his will as his Body on earth.
God is calling out to his disjointed and dry children – the dry bones – to come together, to live life together, simply… as followers of Jesus. If you are one of these dry bones, will you begin – however gradually – to consider connection with other dry bones who yearn for His Kingdom here and now… for real life in Jesus, to simply follow Jesus with others each day? There really are people who want the same… whose motives have been through the fire… whose lives bear similar scars… who believe God is looking for people who will yield to him so his life can flow in them again.
These dry bones can live again.
Ezekiel 37.1-14 and Ephesians 4.1-16