Oh, what a howling wind today! Chester, our dog, dislikes the wind and was decidedly restless last night. He refused to sleep in his usual spot but roamed the house and at some point ended up underneath our bed. On the drive to work this morning, my substantial car was swaying around its lane. The crows looked comical making no headway in their attempt to fly into the wind to make the next tree.
This morning the “Unbinding the Gospel” prayer journal invites us to read Ezekiel 37:1-14, the story of Ezekiel’s vision about the dry bones scattered on the ground. God calls on Ezekiel to prophesy-speak-declare to the wind-breath-Spirit for the bones to live. And in dramatic fashion, they join together and become living people. Then God promises Ezekiel and the people of Israel: I will put my Spirit-wind-breath within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the LORD, have spoken and will act!
We were invited in the journal to think of our church and the whole Church, praying that the Wind-Breath- Spirit would bring the “driest, deadest, boniest parts to life.” What would you pray for?
I don’t consider them dry and bony, but I pray for our youth ministry as we pray for what form new leadership will take. Come Wind-Breath-Spirit, and shape it the way you intend. (Coincidentally, a 50 mph blast just hit the window as I type.) I pray for the new venture “Prayer Around the Cross” in a few weeks; Holy Spirit-Breath-Wind, draw people you want to come into that circle of prayer for healing. You, Spirit, know who is in the driest,deadest and boniest situations and who needs to be surrounded with healing prayer. (No joking, the wind just did another powerful blast against the window 🙂 This past week the office administrator and I were trying to go through the lists of inactive members…now that truly feels like the driest, boniest task to me. Breath-Spirit-Wind, come into that conversation. I think of the people that have been mentioned in our Unbinding group, people with whom we have contact and are searching for God. Holy Breath-Spirit-Wind, blow opportunities for conversations or invitations into our times with them.
But now, I wrap a blanket around me, and a message for tomorrow must be written on a very different scripture text. Whether or not I sense any windy inspiration, I must start. I have to trust that by tomorrow morning the Wind-Breath-Spirit will make whatever typed manuscript is forth-coming into more than dead bones!!
(Why do I keep saying Wind-Breath-Spirit? Because the one Hebrew word means all three. Only context can dubiously suggest which to emphasize when translating it into English. How’s that for confusing and absolutely marvelous! And by the way, a tall hemlock tree from across the street blew down and snapped the power lines. Guess Chester was pretty astute after all.)
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