I love, love, love Ezekiel 37. Especially the first part. I don’t know how many times I read this scripture a year and how fresh it appears each time.

The chapter talks about the prophet Ezekiel and his vision of the valley with dry bones. I love how, after all the bleakness Ezekiel sees, the Lord asks him in verse 3: “Son of man, can these bones live?” and Ezekiel answers like all of us probably would: “O Lord God, You know.”

For the bones were not only “very many”, they were also “very dry” and scattered; as if that were not enough, they were in a valley!

There is not much good about valleys. The Bible describes it as a place with a shadow of death in Psalm 23.

Valleys are also humid and dangerous zones with floods and much filth in our experiences. A valley hardly ever offers beautiful views compared to hillsides or hilltops, and is at risk of dangers such as landslides.

But those are the tools God worked with to demonstrate His power to Ezekiel!

In a valley, at Ezekiel’s prophecy, God connected bone to bone, put flesh and sinews on and restored breath and blood to turn the dry bones into not just any army, but the Bible says a great army; not just a great army, but an “exceedingly great army”! All from scattered dry bones in a valley.

So, these people were dry bones in the first place because they had lost a battle or fallen victim to a vicious attack. Yet God raised them once again, regardless their past failures, and used them powerfully.

That is how it is with us; I see so many cases of very dry scattered bones in a valley. I see them in today’s marriages. I see them in businesses. I see them in the moral decadence.

But it does not matter how bleak things look now; get out of the tiny box you placed yourself and your God in, and know He can turn any situation around!

I was thinking about the creation work that happened in that valley as per Ezekiel’s vision. Do you know that more work goes into the invisible aspects of creating a great army?

Think about the internal organs, the courage and boldness, the will and emotions…

Similarly with us and this nation, there is a work the world will witness with the physical eyes as God starts His revival work, but what happens behind the scenes is more and to be marveled at, once complete.

Just be willing to stop bemoaning your circumstances and prophesy into them, instead.

malita@observer.ug