This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life.

(Ezekiel 37:5 NIV)

A man was walking through a graveyard when he suddenly heard Beethoven’s Third Symphony playing backward. Then the Second Symphony followed — also backward. Finally, the First Symphony started up. Startled, he asked a cemetery worker, “What’s going on?”

“It’s Beethoven,” the worker replied. “He’s decomposing.”

Go ahead and groan.  But beneath the humor lies a serious truth: cemeteries remind us of endings. To say someone is “decomposing” points to the finality of death. And in our own lives, there are times where things feel just as final — dreams that have died, relationships that have unraveled, hope that has dried up.

Ezekiel knew that feeling when God led him to a valley full of dry bones. To Ezekiel, those bones represented hopelessness — Israel’s people broken, scattered, and as good as dead. Yet God spoke into that hopelessness: “This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life.”  What Ezekiel saw as finished, God saw as the beginning of resurrection.

That same God still speaks life into our valleys today. When we feel like we’re “decomposing” — tired, discouraged, or too far gone — God has the power to breathe new life into us. Sometimes that looks like renewed energy or strength for today. Other times it means God is getting ready to plant something new. Either way, he reminds us that decay is not the end of the story.

Think about a seed. Before it can bring life, it must fall into the ground and break open. What looks like destruction is actually the beginning of growth. In the same way, what seems like decay in your life may be God’s way of preparing the soil for something new.

Beethoven may have been “decomposing” in the joke, but God doesn’t leave his people in decay. He is the God of resurrection, the One who makes dry bones live again, the One who gives us that assurance by raising Jesus from the grave.

Prayer: Lord, we thank you that in you, our hopelessness is not final. Breathe new life into our weary hearts and restore hope when we feel empty.  Thank you for being the God of resurrection, who brings life out of death.  In Jesus’ name, amen.

Alan Smith
Reprinted with permission from Alan Smith’s Thought For the Day