Love to hear from and know who is listening
Every year 703,000 people take their own life and there are many more people who attempt suicide. Every suicide is a tragedy that affects families, communities and has long-lasting effects on the people left behind. Suicide can occur throughout a persons life no matter their age. Suicide is the fourth leading cause of death among 15-29 year-olds. Recently my daughter Sara called me to tell me that her friends from church, teenage daughter, had attempted suicide. She was on a field trip in Washington DC. Some of her peers had been picking on her to such an extent she felt her only solution was suicide. While the link between suicide and mental disorders is well established, many suicides happen impulsively in moments of crisis with a breakdown in the ability to deal with life stresses, such as financial problems, relationship break-up or chronic pain and illness or simply mean teenagers. But no matter how broken your life may be God can restore you.
In Ezekiel chapter 37, Ezekiel was led through a parched valley, he wondered how many lives had been lost. Everywhere he looked, there seemed to be endless piles of bones without any sign of life.
A violent battle had taken place leaving many corpses behind, but decomposition and wild animals had taken their toll so that all that was left was dry bones. God asked Ezekiel, can these bones live? Ezekiel replied, Oh Lord God only you know. God told Ezekiel to prophecy over the bones.
Ezekiel 37: 7-10 NIV 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, breath, from the four winds 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.
There are 206 bones in the human body. If you brought me a box containing only 1 human body I would never in my own power be able to reassemble just one skeleton, but when Ezekiel trusted in the power of the almighty God. He was able to reassemble not just 1 skeleton, but an entire army of them.
However strange God's command may have been, Ezekiel obeyed! As he preaches, the bones begin to shake. They come together to form skeletons. Tendons and muscles begin to form and they are finally covered with skin. Instead of bones, there are now human bodies. But there is still no life in them. The Lord tells Ezekiel once again to prophesy, this time to tell them to breath. Ezekiel obeys another strange request and breath begins to enter these lifeless bodies. The once dry lifeless pile of bones becomes a mighty army. As we go through our daily lives, each one of us experiences difficult situations. A lot of the times when we go through pain or suffering, during these difficult or confusing times, we are quick to worry about them instead of having faith in God. God has given us the gift of faith, not because we deserve it, but as a result of his everlasting love for us.
Ephesians 2: 8-9 NIV For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God not by works, so that no one can boast.
No matter how broken you may think your life is, if you put your faith in God he can reassemble your broken life!
