"Then he said to me, 'Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Behold, they say, "Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are indeed cut off."'" - Ezekiel 37:11
Have you lost anything lately?
Maybe your keys? Maybe your faith? Maybe your hope?
Let's start with the keys.
A friend of mine approached me at church yesterday and asked if I'd seen their keys. I apologized that I hadn't. They walked away, still puzzled, and I went into the library to lead a Bible study.
After class, I was walking out to our cars with a student when she stopped and said, "Whose keys are these?" I chuckled and said that I thought they're the keys of our friend who had lost his. She laughed and went back to return his keys. The keys had never been lost to begin with. A friend was just holding them for a while.
The whole "lost keys" incident reminded me of today's Bible verse and times when our lives seem "dried up, and our hope is lost; we are indeed cut off" (Ezekiel 37:11). In the Bible verse, God is actually carrying the "lost" hope and breath of life for a whole nation until it's ready to receive it back. In my own life, I was so blessed when my children and other dear Christian friends carried my "lost" hope in the worst season of my life until I was able to see beyond my loss.
What about you? I know that some of you are feeling down, wondering what's in your future and wondering if you even have a future. I know that hope is waning for some of you. Life feels dry. And you feel cut off and detached from other people. It feels like the best parts of life have been lost.
But hang in there. God gave us to each other so we can hold onto and safekeep your "keys," ya know, your hope, your faith, and the strength to look for something good to come your way. All isn't lost. It's just been misplaced for a while. Just long enough to see that, like my kids were for me, the best things in life are always our God and our friends who stick with us until we ourselves can find a brighter view.
So today, let's be on the lookout for each other because somebody has lost their "keys" to life, and we are so blessed to help each other find them.
Praise God!
(For an archive of "Day of Praise", please visit my daughter Calley's website at http://dayofpraisepc.blogspot.com/?m=1)
Pastor Chris
"The gospel is the story of Jesus [what God's only Son has done for us that we can't do for ourselves], spoken as a promise." - Robert Jenson
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