Dry Bones

Dry Bones
my soul cries out
my soul cries out for you

these bones cry out
these dry bones cry for you
to live and move
only You
can raise the dead
lift my head up

Jesus, You’re the one who saves us
Constantly creates us into something new
Jesus You’re the one who finds us
Surely our Messiah will make all things new

This haunting lyric has been playing in my office all morning as I process the week just passed in Tennessee at RECREATE. Michael Gungor's band released their album BEAUTIFUL THINGS today and I've been blaring it in my office (literally I went to another part of the building and I could hear the subwoofer going to town--good thing I'm on the other side of the complex)

I am grateful this morning that I have scriptures that lament and mourn and talk about the times in life that aren't so easily answered. Wouldn't it be a shame if all we had was a "lollipop" bible that only said good things? What would we do? We would fall apart--I know that for sure.

“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. He led me back and forth among them, and 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?”
I said, “O Sovereign LORD, you alone know.” Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD! This is what the Sovereign LORD says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the LORD.’ ” 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. I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them.

Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and 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 as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army.”

Ezekiel 37:1-10

"Yet again--these dry bones will praise you"