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 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. (Ezek. 37:1-10)

I want to take a few more lessons from Ezekiel’s valley of dry bones before moving on. This is about God giving life to those things that are dead by all natural measures. In the beginning of Ezekiel’s account, God took him out and led him back and forth through the scene of desolation and then asked him if those bones could live again. Ezekiel had viewed the impossibility from every angle and undoubtedly the natural man would have given these bones no chance to live again. Even acknowledging the sovereignty of God, the natural man would have concluded that if God had wanted these bones to dance again, he would not have let them die in the first place. Death seemed to herald God’s final verdict because, after all, it is given to man once to die and then the judgment. No resurrection. No reincarnation. When a thing dies, it’s time to bury it and move on. It would have been easy for Ezekiel’s reason to come into agreement with that view and if it had, his answer to the Lord’s question would have been, “No way, Jose.”

But Ezekiel did not let the natural man rule the day. In essence his response was, “God, if you want these bones to live again they will because nothing is impossible for you and my faith comes into agreement with that truth rather than what is possible or impossible in the natural.” That is the always the mindset of faith and the mindset that brings victory over the impossible.

Secondly, Ezekiel was told to prophecy over the bones and they would come to life. As he began to prophesy he saw something amazing – bones twitched, moved, and reattached while muscles and flesh formed over the bones. Nothing happened until he began to declare God’s word over the situation and, as he declared it, God’s power was release. Amazing stuff started to happen. I’m certain that Ezekiel’s heart raced and his faith soared. But then it stopped. Everything looked good but when Ezekiel had finished prophesying there was still no life in the bodies. How often have we prayed, gotten excited about something that looked like progress, only to watch it stall out so we decided that our prayer was not going to be answered after all.

However, God told Ezekiel to continue to prophesy but with a different twist. He was no longer commanding bones but the Spirit himself to come and breathe life into these corpses. Sometimes the answer to prayer is a process rather than an event and as the process unfolds we may need to pray or declare with a different emphasis. If we have prayed for God to make an unbelieving husband into a great man of God, our first prayers and declaration must be for the Spirit to birth faith in the man or for the man to have an undeniable encounter with Jesus. After he has come to faith, our prayers or declarations need to change. Salvation is no longer the issue but growth, discipleship, and sanctification.

We need to be sensitive to the process and to ask God what we should be praying for or declaring in the present. Hearing from God in those moments is critical because we may be unaware of the new believer’s greatest need for growth while we pray for something that we perceive as the greatest need. When Ezekiel didn’t see the bones jumping to their feet, he didn’t give up nor did he start declaring what he thought was needed, but waited on the Lord to tell him what was next.

As he declared Part 2 of the prophecy, those bodies began to breathe and stood up as mighty army. God then gave his reasons for raising the dead. “This is what the Sovereign Lord says: O my people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel. Then you, my people, will know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the Lord have spoken, and I have done it, declares the Lord” (Ezek.37:12-14).

Just because something or someone seems dead and beyond all hope, it doesn’t mean that God is through with the person, the marriage, or the situation. It is in those moments that God shows himself to be the true and living God. Do not come into agreement with unbelief. Do not stop praying and declaring life over someone or something. Keep going, even when progress seems to stall out or ground seems to be lost, and ask God how you need to be praying or what you need to be declaring in at moment of the process. After all, dead bones can live again – just ask Lazarus and, by the way… Jesus.