DRY BONES

1. Dry Bones  

a) You may be standing in a desperate situation in the battle of a lifetime. You may feel that you are in the darkest storm of your life. It seems that everything in your world is out of your control. Good news! It is! But God is still in control. El Roi, the God who sees, knows it all and has a plan that he is working out.

b) God gave the vision of the valley of dry bones to his prophet Ezekiel because his heart weeps over the dry bones of his people, as Jesus wept over the city of Jerusalem. The Spirit of God wants to breathe new life into vast areas of spiritual dryness, barrenness, and deadness.

c) This passage can be intensely personal. Take strength and comfort from these prayers. Re-center yourself on God’s purposes and promises, and take up new prayer weapons to fight the real enemy, not the person or situation. Ask for a weeping heart of mercy, not judgment. Until you can put your tears and your life on the line for the person, marriage, family, church, city, or nation, you do not have the heart and mind of Jesus towards them. Open your Bible to Ezekiel 37 and read, crying out to God for your own “dry bones” situations.

i) Father, your hand is upon me in Spirit-led intercession. Purify my hearts by your Spirit and deposit your burden of prayer in me, unmixed with unsanctified sympathies, anger, bitterness, or human judgments. I am trusting you to bring me through the valley of the shadow of death, as you promised. Lead me to pray as large, deep, and wide as your providence in this situation. Give me a heart of wisdom and mercy that rejoices against judgment.

ii) I trust that you have gone before and are working, even when I don’t see your purposes. Spirit of the Lord, lead me to rightly discern the real condition, not just react to what I think or have been told. You see the dry bones of barrenness and desolation. You know the entrance that has given the kingdom of evil.

iii) Spirit of counsel, you know everything. You don’t need me to inform you. You want from me restful, trusting communion and absolute surrender to your will, your ways, and your timing. I humbly acknowledge my total dependence on you for faith to stand, for knowledge and counsel, for comfort and security, for direction and outcome. Let me speak only your prayers. Let me not accept as final the circumstances of evil and iniquity that my eyes see. You alone know the end from the beginning, and you are the God of the impossible.

iv) Say to deaf ears, “Hear the word of the Lord!” At your direction, let me discern and pray your purposes. Speak your words to me and cause me to respond obediently to you. Enable me to pray your prayers for the dry bones of whole being. Holy Spirit, call forth your purposes and the future and hope that you have planned for.

v) Sovereign Lord, speak your creative and restoring miracle to life with the same resurrection power that brought Jesus to life from the dead. Breathe new life into me by your Spirit. Set everything in place in your order in my life, so that I will know that you are Lord, Sovereign Ruler, rightfully due my loyalty and obedient service.

vi) By faith, I believe you, obey you, and pray as you command. Answer by your Spirit and open a way where there seems to be no way. You go before, for you are the God of break-through. Give me a sign of encouragement. Let me hear the “rattling bones” coming together as you make me who you intend me to be: healthy, whole, functioning, life-giving. By your blood, Lord Jesus, regenerate life in me and cause the marrow of my inner being to begin to sustain life.

vii) Thank you for every sign of Your goodness I see, no matter how small. You are answering, and I ask you to do it thoroughly. Stop short of nothing less than a new heart, a new spirit, a new life.

viii) Sovereign Lord, call forth from the north, the south, the east, and the west the breath of life. You formed me in my mother’s womb, and as you breathed in me the first breath of my life, breathe into me the new life of the Spirit in all your favor and purpose. Restore me to wholeness.

ix) No situation is hopeless to you. Sovereign Lord, break off the shackles of captivity. Cause me to stand up in all the fullness of your redeeming power. Make me mighty in your Spirit. Deliver me as an effectual weapon in your hand. Let me see your glory in these things that were intended for evil.

x) You have the keys to open the prison doors of sin, bondage, and destruction. Bring this captive out into all my true inheritance in you. Restore me to the family and the family of God.

xi) Father, act in such a way that transformation will be a testimony to your redemptive power. What you are doing, do quickly. In Jesus’ name, Amen.