Word For You is no longer available in print or digital format although the archive of previous readings will remain available on this page for some time yet. If you'd like to continue with Word For You, you can listen to each day's devotional on the UCB Player app.
Breath of life
In Ezekiel 37, we read about Ezekiel’s vision of the Valley of Dry Bones. There was no life here. Our lives can feel like that. We look around and just see remains. Everything feels dead and dry. But God can take our broken pieces and put them back together. God told Ezekiel to prophesy to the bones that they would live again. Firstly, the bones came back together and skin appeared. They were no longer broken on the ground, but put together again. However, they needed God’s breath to live. ‘So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet – a vast army’ (Ezekiel 37:10 NIV). With God’s breath, these bones didn’t just live again, but together became an army. They had strength and power. God can breathe His life into the parts of our lives that feel broken and dry too. He can raise us up to be powerful for Him. In verse 9 we’re told that the Spirit of God came from ‘the four winds’, or the four corners of the earth. That means there’s no place where His Spirit can’t reach us if we’re open to Him working in our lives. Sometimes that working can feel uncomfortable. As God was bringing the bones together, there was ‘rattling’ (v.7 NIV). The Hebrew word for this can also be translated as a noise, commotion, shaking, and uproar. When God’s working in us and through us, we can sometimes be shaken out of our comfort zone. He might need to renew our minds and behaviours. The process of restoration can feel messy and chaotic, and we might even wonder if God’s going to leave us half-restored. But He promises to keep working (take a look at Philippians 1:6).
What Now?
Are there parts of your life which are feeling broken and dry? Take some time to ask God to move in those places and begin His process of restoration.
The UCB Word For You
Read More