Scripture: "The hand of the Lord was on 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, '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.'" Ezekiel 37:1-5
In the midst of the chaos of the housing market in Nashville, my husband and I felt like it was the right time for us to buy a house. We knew we wanted to be in the highly sought after town of Franklin, and as we shared with others our list of what we wanted we got wide eyed looks in return that silently said: you’re crazy, that’s impossible.
Even so, we made a physical list of what our dream house would include and we continually prayed over that list.
As we started making offers on houses and continued to get beat out, we started to get discouraged. Was buying a house in Franklin really as impossible as everyone else said?
Our dream to own a home and start building a foundation for our life here in Franklin stayed in the forefront of our minds even as it started to get discouraging. One day, I was in our apartment praying for our perfect house. We checked the housing market every day, and every so often, a new home would come on the market. Because the inventory was so limited, offers were always made immediately. Some houses had more than twenty offers on them within a day.
As I was praying, this new house popped up on the map–it was exactly where we wanted to be. I immediately sent it to my husband and he replied saying, “let’s put in an offer right now.” Our realtor put an offer in for us before we even saw the house. The next day, the homeowners came back with a counter. We were finally in first place for this house, a house we hadn’t even seen yet. I was starting to feel as crazy as everyone else thought we were.
While negotiating continued, we had a chance to go see the house. When we walked in to take a look around on that rainy day, it was hard to ignore how many issues this house had. It wasn’t well taken care of, in some ways it seemed like it was almost falling apart and in disarray. It was dingy and dark inside and the pictures we saw online were clearly very well edited.
Yet even before we stepped inside I felt in my spirit that this was our house. We walked into the decision of buying our first home based on a vision and a promise that was beyond what we could see.
Today, I’m writing this from our living room. Everything in sight looks completely different from our months of DIY projects.
When I walked in this living room for the first time, it looked a lot like the dry bones in Ezekiel.
The situation looked a little hopeless on the outside. But nothing is ever hopeless with God.
In this passage, the Lord challenged His people to not look at what he saw. What they saw was hopeless, dead, and impossible. Instead, He asked him to pray and prophesy new life to the dry bones.
I think this passage is very literal, but I also see the parallel it offers to our daily lives. God brings dead things back to life. Jesus’ resurrection proved this to be true and our own salvation stories are a personal testimony of lives that are dead and misguided being brought back to life, and one full of purpose and direction. (Romans 6:5)
I also think this passage offers a parallel to our prayer lives where we can learn that receiving vision from God gives us the ability to pray through faith.
We can obediently walk into the thing that doesn’t make sense, like buying a house that doesn’t appear all that great, knowing that the vision and promise God made us will be fulfilled.
First, God gives the vision. Then, we pray and prophesy through faith, believing the vision is more real than what is right in front of us. The world will call you crazy in the process, but I hope your life is full of many moments like my moment, looking around my living room thinking to myself, "only God."
Journaling Prompts:
-Write out a vision you feel like God has given you for your life.
-Is there something specific you're praying for right now? Write out a prayer in faith.
-What does praying through faith look like in your season? What steps would you be taking to know you're doing this?
Action Step:
Praying through faith is powerful! One of the most powerful things we can do is actually speak about a dream or vision God puts on our hearts. Tell one person this week about a dream or vision you are praying for in faith.
Worship:
Pray:
God thank you for the visions you have given us to help guide our prayers in faith towards the things you have for us and the visions you have for your world and people. Help us to see not what the world sees but what you see, and to pray in alignment with your vision and purposes for us and for the world around us. Amen.
Subscribe here for free weekly devos delivered to your inbox every Monday!