One simple word from Jesus to Peter on the boat...
"COME"
Defied the elements, controlled the power of gravity,
stopped the process of death
and overcame the power of every negative circumstance.
-Dr. Gary V. Whetstone
(from the book:"It only takes One")

Can these dry bones live?

I have been thinking a lot about that question.
As I stand in the midst of the brokenness of teenage lives.
Listening to young people share about their addictions to drugs and alcohol.
Looking into the eyes of a young man in Martin Hall youth detention center; whose father won't come pick him up, even though he was released 3 weeks ago because his father is ashamed of him and the crime he committed.
Watching teens delude themselves with lies about love, sex and who really cares for them.
Watching them building fantasies about the future that are constructed out of the straw of pop culture instead of the rock of God's truth.
Sitting knee deep in the bloody mess of trying to piece back together lives that have been demolished by sexual abuse and cancerous family life.
Pained by the despair of another young girl getting pregnant.
Frustrated by the shallowness, the complacency, the indifference around me.
Struggling with the darkness while wrestling with the seeming weakness of the light.

Can these bones live...

That is a question that confronts me everyday.
I would like to pretend that I meet that question with a resounding "YES" of faith.
But in reality the grinding nature of life, human frailty and sin, often seems to exhaust and blur the vision.

Can THESE dry bones live?

Not somewhere else, not some other family or ministry, not in Africa, Asia or somewhere out there but can the dry bones around me live?
Can bones that have been looooooooong dead live?
Can the stuff that barely resembles a body, come alive again?
Can the ones that have died come back to life?
Can something that is dead...live again?

I find myself in the midst of a valley of dry bones and God wants to ask such a question.
The questions of God penetrate to the heart.
They uncover the true thoughts of the soul.
They come like a bright light that unveils everything as it truly is.

What do you really think...He asks.

Face the bones.

Touch the dry & brittle remains of life.
Look at death and think about life.
Stand in the midst of hopeless situations and begin to dream again.

Look for the places that death has overcome, where darkness has slain hope,
and walk among the dead.

I've been talking to bones...