This is an extension of last week’s blog that focused on Ezekiel’s “valley of dry bones.” God keeps reminding me about the promise of persistence so, perhaps, I or someone reading this needs the encouragement.

In his letter to the church at Galatia Paul wrote, “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up” (Gal. 6:7-9).

These verses serve both as a warning and a promise. The spiritual law is confirmed in natural law. Whatever seeds you plant, will produce a crop of the same. Apple seeds produce apple trees. Watermelon seeds invariably produce watermelons. The seeds of thorn bushes produce thorn bushes. The spiritual law demands that whatever we sow will produce a harvest of the very things we have been planting.

In general, if we sow or do things to please our flesh, destructive things will eventually come our way. If we sow or do things that please the Spirit, we will receive life giving responses and blessings . Blessed are the merciful for they shall receive mercy. Proverbs 18:21 declares that the tongue has the power of life or death. If we consistently speak negative words or “death,” negative things will come our way along with failure. If we speak positive things – life and hope, success will be birthed out of our words. This spiritual law is also reflected in the words of Jesus: “With what judgment you judge, you shall be judged” and those who will not forgive, will not be forgiven.

Paul’s point in his letter was that to believe we sow one thing and receive another to that we can sow without a harvest, is mocking God. His promise is that we will reap what we sow. Like harvest in the natural realm, the more seed you spread, the more you harvest. The more people you bless, the greater will be the blessings that come back to you.

One of the challenges of this law is is that there is a season of waiting between seed time and harvest. In the spiritual realm, it can be a more than a few months. For those who sow to the flesh, this extended season between sowing and reaping can be deceptive. Those who do evil may interpret the lag time as evidence that they can act without consequence. Paul assures us however, that God will not be mocked. Destruction is in the pipeline for those who sow to the flesh without repentance.

On the other side of the spectrum, we may become discouraged from doing good, from hoping, from trusting, from continuing in prayer, from slogging through a disappointing marriage, because we don’t see “green shoots pushing up through the ground” from our efforts or prayers we have sown into the spiritual realm. But once again, the promise is that God will not be mocked. Paul says we should not grow weary in doing good because God guarantees we will reap a harvest for the good we have sown, the prayers we have uttered, the ministry or relationships, we have been pouring into, the life-giving words we have spoken, and so forth.

So…whatever you have been sowing that pleases the Spirit, be assured a good harvest will come. You may see it soon, see it later, or only see it in your bank account where you have laid up treasures in heaven, but God promises a rich return. If you consider timelines in scripture regarding deliverance from bondage, children being born to barren women, the Messiah coming, and so forth, there are just as many prayers that took decades as there are the overnight, miraculous interventions we delight in. Even those may have been preceded by someone sowing seeds of prayer and life-giving words. If weariness has set in, take heart. God knows and God promises.

This past week I’ve been reading through Ezekiel again.  It’s always a fascinating read with his prophetic visions and pronouncements.  Once again, I came to Chapter 37 which is the “valley of dry bones” chapter. Ezekiel is taken by the Spirit to a sight where some ancient battle had been fought and where hundreds or thousands of bodies had been left without burial. All that remained were dry, bleached, and scattered bones.  It was a scene of absolute desolation. As Billy Crystal would say in the Princess Bride, these guys were “all dead” not just “mostly dead.”

Then the Lord questions Ezekiel.  “Son of man, can these bones live?”  The obvious answer would have been, “No way, Yaweh!”  But Ezekiel was wiser and simply replied, “Sovereign Lord, only you know.”  Then the Lord commanded Ezekiel to prophecy over the bones. “This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath enter you and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin. I will put breath in you, and you will come to life.  Then you will know that I am the Lord!” 

As Ezekiel began to prophecy, the bones began to rattle and come together.  Then tendons and flesh appeared, then skin, but they were not yet living. Then the Lord told him to prophecy for breath to enter these bodies.   The word in Hebrew for breath is the same word as Spirit.  When “the breath” came into these bodies they stood up as a vast army.  Then God explained to Ezekiel that these dry bones represented Israel.  From a human perspective Israel had been destroyed.  Most of the Israelites had died in battle or had been taken to foreign nations as slaves.  The land was desolate and no one believed the tiny nation could ever live again.

But God still had a destiny for Israel and he swore he would make her a nation once more.  It would be that miracle that would convince Israel that God was their God. All through the Old Testament, God declares he will restore Israel and bring his people back from the nations where they have been scattered.  That reunification of God’s people to the land he had given them began in 1948 and is continuing.

We could go into all of that, but the principle I want to point out is that God is a God who breathes life into hopeless situations.  There are times when we may find ourselves hopeless…a marriage on the rcoks, a child caught in addictions, a bad report from the doctors, too much month at the end of the money, and so forth.  But God raises the dead…not just those who have been dead for a few days, but whole valleys of bleached bones.  

He does these things because he has already written a destiny for nations and individuals.  He does these things to draw people to him and for the glory of his name.  Sometimes when God calls people to Jesus, they feel as if their life is such a train wreck that no one, including God, could ever make it live again.  My wife Susan and I talked to a friend last night who is living in a large metropolitan area in Texas.  She told us about a young woman she had encountered who was making a living as a prostitute.  She has a teenage daughter she is trying to raise and doesn’t know how to make enough money any other way.  But, bit by bit, she is coming to Jesus.  She is slowly opening her heart. She is coming to believe that God can breathe real life into her again. She hasn’t yet given up her profession, but it is coming and she will soon be changed forever by the Lord…her and her daughter.  Like the bones coming together – bones, then tendon, then flesh, then skin, then breath, resurrection can be a process rather than an immediate event.  

If your life feels like a trainwreck and you’re wondering if you can ever recover and breathe again, remember the valley of dry bones.  God still has a destiny for you.   He wants to restore that destiny, set you on your feet, and breathe life into you again. Nothing is beyond his reach.  It may be a process instead of an overnight event, but he specializes in such things for your sake and for the glory of his name.  Hang on. Cry out. Don’t give up.  As Ezekiel prophesied over the bones, begin to speak life over your situation in the name of Jesus.  See what God does.

This past week our congregation joined other churches around the world for five days of prayer and fasting. We met each night for a time of worship and corporate prayer while we drew close to God and one another.  Naturally, the emphasis was on the goodness and faithfulness of God and his willingness to answer our prayers. We had great testimonies of answered prayers and celebrated with those individuals.   When we do something like that, however the question always comes up about why God has not yet answered someone’s prayer who has been petitioning God for months or maybe years.  That is a legitimate question and one I thought I would respond to in this blog.

There is not just one answer, of course, but several possibilities.  One interesting element can be found in Daniel 10.  In that chapter, the prophet is given a revelation of a terrible war.  He is troubled by the vision and is unclear about who the war will involve.  Rather than pulling out a book on the interpretation of dreams, he begins to petition the Lord for the understanding of the revelation.  And so, he begins to fast and pray while waiting on his answer.  On the 21^st day of his fasting, an angel comes to him in a vision.  

The interesting part of the angel’s response is that he was dispatched with the answer to Daniel’s prayer the very first day he began to pray.  He explained that while he was in route, a demonic prince, the prince of Persia, confronted him and they battled for twenty-one days.  The angel who came to Daniel explained that he was only able to deliver the message because Michael, one of the chief angels of God, had come to take up the fight so that Daniel could receive the interpretation he had asked for.

We learn some important things from this.  First of all, things don’t just automatically happen in the spiritual realm.  Many times, angels are dispatched to come to us and facilitate the answers to our prayers.  Sometimes, they face demonic opposition that is not just swept away.  We have no idea how much demonic opposition may stand in the way of our prayers for someone’s salvation, the success of a business that will give generously to the kingdom, or for a nation. Paul declared that our struggle is not against flesh and blood but against spiritual powers and principalities in the heavenly realms (EPH. 6).  We usually have no idea what is involved in the answer to our prayers in the unseen realm.  This chapter of Daniel draws the curtain back just a bit.  

Secondly, n a microwave world, we want everything instantly, but in many cases, there must be an element of persistence and endurance in our prayers.  I think anther important question is what would have happened if Daniel had quit praying after two weeks assuming that his prayer was not going to be answered?  Would Michael have come to take up the fight?  Would the angel have been able to complete his assignment?  I believe Michael came because Daniel continued to pray and petition God.  As we pray and declare God’s word over situations, more power is directed to that situation. If we stop praying, a prayer that has been approved may not see its completion because we faltered on our end. We hear lots of testimonies about rapid answers to prayers.  We need more testimonies about answers to something that has been prayed about for years.

Faith endures.  Remember Abraham.  God personally promised him a son in his old age.  Abraham was excited as well as Sarah, but the promise did not come quickly.  In fact, it was twenty-five years before Isaac was born and each passing year made the promi9se seem all the more impossible.  God encouraged him for time to time that the promise was in the pipeline but it had to be hard to maintain faith and keep praying into the promise. In a moment of weakness, Abraham and Sarah tried to see the promise fulfilled in the natural way through Hagar but that was a disaster.  But still, the wittier of Hebrews assures us that they both continued in faith (some days more than others) until Sarah herself conceived.  Twenty-five years was a long time…but their prayers were answered.

In Matthew 7, Jesus taught, “seek and you shall find, ask and it shall be given to you, knock and the door shall be opened.” The verb tenses in that verse are present progressive which means they can and should be translated as “keep on seeking, keep on asking, and keep on knocking.  Again, we love overnight answers to our prayers, but some will require persistence and endurance.  

Even when God says yes, there may be demonic opposition.  In addition, hearts have to be prepared, character needs to be matured, pieces have to be moved on the chess board so that outcomes are orchestrated without violating anyone’s free will.  That all takes time. I have known several people who prayed to be married, prayed for an amazing job, or prayed for a leadership position who would have scuttled the marriage, gone after worldly wealth and fame with their, or would have damaged an organization or a church if promoted too soon because they were not ready to steward the answers to their prayers.  God wasn’t saying no, he was just saying not yet.

The lesson is to pray with faith, but be willing to continue to pray until there is breakthrough or until God shows you something else.  The patriarchs were commended for their faith because some died without seeing promises fulfilled for their children, but still believed God would answer their prayers even after their death.

Bottom line…pray with faith, celebrate the prayers answered quickly, but then be prepared to continue to pray for weeks, months or even years if the desire is from God and worth pursuing for long time.  Some of us stopped praying after a while because we thought answered prayer came soon.  We may need to pick that prayer up again, dust if off and pursue it again with faith.

As you know, many of us fall into the trap of projecting our experience with earthly fathers onto our relationship with our heavenly Father.  If you had an amazing father who encouraged you, was affectionate, and who displayed patience and unconditional love, you had a rare experience and you probably have a very positive and warm view of God..  Most of us had an experience with fathers that fell short of that and it is not unusual for us to carelessly slip into a tarnished view of God from time to time by seeing him as our earthly father. When my view shifts in that direction, my faith falters a little, my prayer life cools, and my security wobbles because I begin to doubt God’s love and care for me since my earthly father was not so kind, loving, and available.

Satan has worked overtime to damage fathers all over the world and to malign the idea of fathers in general. Somewhere along the line, we exchanged the idea of the wise Jim Anderson of Father Knows Best (50’s sitcom) to fathers being made in the bumbling image of Al Bundy in the more recent sitcom Married with Children.  Now fathers and men, in general, are characterized as inept, abusive, or toxic.  The Woke movement is working to make sex (more likely men) irrelevant and unnecessary.  Even the new Barbie movie subtly pushes that agenda. Although this is a strategic move to destroy the family as God designed it and to weaken culture across the board, it is more insidious than that.

Because we tend to first understand our Father in Heaven through our experiences with earthly fathers, this cultural movement to vilify the masculine gender is actually designed to alienate us from a heavenly Father. One of the essential parts of the ministry of Jesus was to reveal the Father to us.  In the gospel of John, Jesus declared, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me” (Jn. 14:9-11).

When I begin to drift in my view or my affection toward my Heavenly Father, I need to go back to Jesus who came to demonstrate the heart of the Father.  Where the Son had compassion, the Father had compassion.  When the Son was excited to heal, the Father was excited to heal.  When the Son expressed unconditional love, the Father was expressing the same.  When the Son rebuked or warned, the Father also rebuked and warned.  If we are going to love the Father, most of us will first need to love the Son.  He is more real, more concrete, and was immersed in the things we are immersed in.

One of Job’s complaints to God in the midst of his suffering was, “Do you have eyes of flesh? Do you see as a mortal sees? Are your days like those of a mortal or your years like those of a man” (Job 10:4-5).  In other words, Job was arguing that God could not fairly judge us because he did not know what it was like to be a man, to be mortal, and to contend with the flesh.  After Jesus, we cannot make that argument. Jesus is our great High Priest who knows what it is like to live on this planet and to suffer at the hands of wickedness.  He knows wat it is like to face temptation and the attacks of Satan.  He knows what it is like to be tired and hungry, hot and cold, disappointed and betrayed. But now…if he knows then the Father fully knows as well.  

So, if I begin to see God as an angry or distant father who doesn’t truly care about the things I am suffering, I need to go back to Jesus.  If I begin to see him as a score- keeping God who is waiting for me to earn his love, I need to go back to Jesus. The more I know Jesus, the more I know the Father.  They enemy has worked hard to distort our view of the Father through the lens of our broken fathers on earth.  Jesus is our reset for that distortion.  When you begin to doubt the Father, spend more time with the Son.