May 9
DebDay 56: Dry Bones
It's been a good week, but a sobering week all the same.
A young man is gunned down, lynched while innocently out for a run. An acquaintance of mine, who had great impact on the Acts 29 Network, died on Thursday, details withheld.
I wanted to hear from the Spirit yesterday. Instead, I found myself grieving. I mourned the senseless loss of life. I mourned the devastated families left behind. And I mourned my lack of vision.
The coronavirus and the resultant distancing, the economic and cultural changes, the present challenges and unknowns to re-emergence have caused me to be short sighted.
But there has to be more to see. Something has to transcend my present inconveniences. There has to be something the Lord is doing.
I wonder if the Lord wants to purify us from our preoccupation with materialism, and our insatiable desire for mindless entertainment. I wonder if the Lord wants to break His Church of its pride and hate and unjust ways.
I wonder if the Lord wants us to corporately repent of our pride and our devaluing of God.
Ezekiel 37 tells the story of a vision God gave the prophet. A valley full of dry bones. God tells Ezekiel to "prophesy" over the bones, telling them what God will do.
The dry bones are those of His own people.
God then pulls the bones together and adds muscles and flesh and skin to each, He breathes His breath into their lungs. And He says, "You shall know that I am the Lord, when I reopen your graves, and raise you from your graves, O My people. And I shall put my Spirit within you, and you shall live."
Is it possible our risen Lord Jesus wants us to be different people and a different church going forward?
Can we be known, not just for how successfully we re-emerge, but by our compassion, by our courage, by our Spirit-led passion for Jesus and His Kingdom mission?
Jesus died in our place, then rose from the grave to take His rightful place reigning over us. He gave us life. He didn't do that so we would end up a collection of sun bleached bones.
He is Who He is, and did what He did, so we could be indwelled and empowered by the Spirit; so we could truly live.
I pray we experience this ourselves and see in each other a fresh desire to be much more than just content to be dry bones.
-Mike Rydman, Lead Pastor, Radiant Church | Juneau
