Prophecy to the Breath

Have you ever read Ezk 37? The first 14 verses are especially compelling. Ezekiel finds himself alone in a valley of filled with dried up bones and God asks "Can these bones live?"  What would your honest answer be?  No way!  A pile of corpses can't live, how much less a pile of dried up bones.  Yet God tells Ezekiel to tell the bones that He (God) will cause breath to enter them and they will live.  And what happens? Ezekiel prophecies to bones and they recovered their bodies. If we pause for a moment and forget that we know the end of the story, what would our assessment be? Yeah for God! Our job is done. Let's go conquer some enemy.  But we know the job wasn't done and that God had another step in His life giving process.  Why two steps why not flesh and tendons and all that, along with life itself?  I think its for two reasons: 1) It is to show us that there is a clear distinction between physical life and spiritual life.  Is either one less of a miracle than the other? No, but one is clearly dependent on the other.  The other and probably more significant reason for separating the two steps is to highlight the giver of each of the gifts. If spiritual life came with the physical life, things could get blurry, watered down and perhaps a little muddled.  So, God makes it clear.  As Ezekiel prophecies to the breath, the breath came to them and they lived.

So brothers and sisters, do we "prophecy to the breath"? To update the lingo, do we invite the Holy Spirit to our devotions, to our bible studies, to our conversations? Do we ask Him to join us at church, at work, at home?  Or, as AW Tozer asks, "Are we just turning the crank?"  SDG