Dry Bones

That's what the evangelist spoke on today. His text Ezekiel 37:1-10. He implored us to speak to our own valley of dried bones.

I had a vision once... before I was saved... a vision of a valley filled with dry bones. I'm sure I'd not heard this passage preached. Yes, I went to church, but didn't know God. Anyway, to the vision...

I was standing dressed in armor, a child's armor, flimsy and plastic. I was holding a toilet paper roll sward in my right hand. There was darkness all around me, except for these thousands upon thousands of dry bones... human bones. I was standing waist high in them. And I had the strangest sensation that I would be swallowed by them if I did not make an escape. But there was no escape.

And of course, why not, there is no escape from death without Christ
and His shed blood. A concept which I had been told, but could not quite comprehend.

I saw words coming from my mouth, dropping down like honey onto the bones around me. I could not hear the words which I spoke, but they were powerful words. For as they reached the bones they would grow flesh, join together, creating a form of man, but not a man. And then a great wind came, it knocked me off my feet. It seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere at once. And then these men and women were just that, living breathing people. They lifted me from the bones, for there were still many and carried me up and away from the valley. All the while I continued to speak not knowing my own words.

And Then I was both in this valley and in the church at the same time (I was actually in a revival meeting). The church was my valley of dry bones.

Not then... but some time later I came to have a true and lasting relationship with Jesus Christ. He was no longer my "required" atonement sacrifice. As I had seen Him to be. He was the grace giving God of the ages. Who in His infinite wisdom knew that I needed Him to open my broken heart so that I could fully understand his "offertory" atonement. That He gave His son freely for me, not out of duty, but of love.

So today as the minister spoke I found myself again brought into that valley of dry bones. Except that this time I held in my right had the Word of God and and in my left a quilt to wrap the wounded in. And the words I speak, I hear, it is the word of truth.