The Valley

I love to go to places that are new and exciting where something new will intrigue me, and I particularly like to see valleys. I have no idea why, I can't tell you if it's because they are usually beautiful in color and design or if its just because they are easy on the eyes. I don't know if its because when hiking with friends and we finally make it to a clearing and there in front of you is a beautiful valley with, maybe, water or lush grass and flowers, some full of trees lining the valley and masking it. It is all of these things that I love about pictures of valleys and walking into valleys. They are one of the most drawing things I see in pictures and some hold the most intense secrets of the world...don't you agree? It is almost as tho valleys beckon me to  come and walk through them, enticing me to venture toward an end that may be miles away or to see what is hiding around a small bend. Valleys are beautiful to me. Would you agree?

I am drawn to valleys in pictures they seem to call to me whenever I see them in gallery or in a building when I walk past them. This morning I saw a valley, much different than the one in the picture above, a valley that painted a picture that I would have never thought to be beautiful or enticing...the valley of bones was introduced to my imagination.That's where it grew when I was reading about it; have you see this valley or  read about this valley? It is one that probably most of you who may read this know of but one that I had vaguely heard about but never really read or even really knew about. I am not a major prophet reader, the books at the end of the old testament seem to be dismal and destructive, about God's anger and somewhere in between the lines about His restoration...well, that seems like just too much work to read through, come on, you agree too! Ezekiel is no different in the message that he wrote about - in his visions he listened to something that God wanted him to do and without hesitation or fear he did it, even in the dismal and destructive moments. Ezekiel 37:1-14 (paraphrased) "The hand of the Lord was upon me and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones.... I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. He asked me "Son of man, can these bones live?"...then he said to me "Prophesy to these bones and say to them ' dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.... I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life, I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you...I will put breath in you and you will come to life....So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound and the bones came together, bone to bone....and tendons and flesh appeared on them...but there was not breath in them. Then he said to me "prophesy to the breath...say to it "this is what the Sovereign Lord says: come from the four winds, o breath and breathe into these slain that they may live." So I prophesied...and breath entered them, they came to life and stood up on their feet.... Then he said to me "son of man, these  bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, 'our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off...This is what the Sovereign Lord says: O my people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them....I will put my Spirit in you and you will live....then you will know that I the Lord have spoken and I have done it..."  When I read this it was not  what I wanted to read at 645 a.m., and I'm sure its not the most pretty picture of a valley that you are reading about. So I wondered what was meant for me to really read about in this passage? I don't believe that this passage is about a valley of ugly bones that lie dried and dead on its floor, although that's exactly what I saw when I read this passage....an ugly, scary valley...but is it really?

I wonder if the bones of this valley are those bones that are in my body; I wonder if the bones that God is referring to are those of me that are not filled with life or love. I know that I know that this passage is a reference to God speaking to the house of Israel before Christ's arrival but what does that entire passage have to do with me? Probably a lot but I don't know if I really in truly care about the whole picture, what I do care about is the valley of bones that need life spoken back into them. I have been, in all honesty, a valley of bones not unlike the one the Ezekiel describes, a valley of non-living ...well life, and in this passage this is what I read. "These bones are dry and dead but I, the Sovereign Lord will speak life into them, giving them tendons to my heart, flesh that is not unlike my son's, and breath that will bring new life to you. I will open up the grave of your closed spirit and bring you up from its hold on you and I will put my Spirit in you and you will know that I have spoken and have done it." I know that my bones are dry and  lacking breath of life, I know without a doubt that even tho Ezekiel was delivering God's word to Israel, in this passage He was clearly speaking of my bones, lying without desire to breathe, and this was His word to call me back from the place that I choose to lie. So what will I do? How will my bones react? I am right now jittery and shaking, not unlike those bones that Ezekiel spoke to, and I am willing and full of a new  life that I can only attest to is not of my own will. What I allow to fill those bones that are, I hope, no longer dried and lying on the valley floor with, well that's a climb out of the valley that has begun and that I have to complete. I hope you are not familiar with this valley but if you are do not give up hope, the Spirit of the Lord will breath upon you, when I don't know, how I have no idea, but your little faith, not unlike mine, is enough that God knows when His breath is coming. The valley is not that scary, although it is not that pretty either, it is the valley that I am in and the one that I am climbing out of, with a spirit in my bones and a new destination that's unknown.