Editor’s note: Margaret Feinberg’s The God You Need to Know is the book on the power of the Holy Spirit that we didn’t know we needed! In it, we learn about the Holy Spirit from the Old Testament all the way to Pentecost and learn to seek His presence and power today. Enjoy this excerpt. And, be sure to sign up for The God You Need to Know Online Bible study starting October 27th!
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Sooner or later, all of us find ourselves in situations that are just too much, when the life we knew or envisioned collapses, the place we considered home becomes uninhabitable, the dreams we once held dear are crushed. When we think it can’t get worse, it does. We wake up and realize we lack the resources, connections, and know-¬how to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and push through.
All we can do is pray. And wait.
The Israelites knew this feeling too. They’d spent years living in excruciating exile, displaced from their home. They longed for God to answer their cries, scoop them up, and return them to their homeland. They prayed and waited, yet God remained silent.
One notable trait of Old Testament prophets: a resistance to their calling. They never seem to race to the “Now Hiring Prophets” booth at the holy job fair and beg, “Please, please let me be the super weirdo around town who performs bizarre acts, makes people uncomfortable, and delivers mostly terrible news.”
Case in point: When Moses is tapped to talk to Pharaoh about the future, he stutters that he’s not cut out for public speaking. When Jeremiah discovers that God ordained him to be a prophet in the womb, he argues that he’s far too young. And when Isaiah receives his assignment, he protests, essentially whining, “But how long do I have to do this?”
Ezekiel is no exception. During the first wave of attacks on Jerusalem led by Nebuchadnezzar in 597 BCE, Ezekiel, among a slew of other Jewish prisoners, is kidnapped and imprisoned in a camp. Five years later, still stuck in the squalor, Ezekiel turns thirty. The day called for an epic celebration surrounding his installation as a priest to serve in the temple, but it turns out to be a birthday to forget.
Amid deep disappointment, the Spirit ignites Ezekiel’s imagination with images of storm clouds, mysterious creatures, and spinning wheels within wheels — conveying that God’s presence isn’t limited to the ark of the covenant:
God lives in a mobile home, or rather, a mobile throne.
When Ezekiel drops face down, the Spirit lifts him to his feet and appoints him as a holy mouthpiece. The Spirit warns him not to get his hopes up, for most days his words will fall on deaf ears. The prophet soon feels the deep distress of his calling.
Ezekiel uses everything from spoken words to street theater to garner the people’s attention and deliver the Spirit’s messages.
He builds a model of Jerusalem and stages an attack. He shaves off his hair and dices it with a sword like he’s a theatrical chef at a hibachi restaurant. He plays the role of the fuzzy scapegoat on the Day of Atonement. He even lies on his side for an entire year — call the chiropractor! — and eats food that tastes like smoked dung as a sign of what’s to come.
All the prophet’s warnings come true. Jerusalem falls. The temple everyone hoped to return to is destroyed. The false prophets are purged. In the wake of the catastrophe and chaos, it looks like all is lost. But, as we have learned from the Spirit hovering over chaotic waters, that’s when the Spirit of God does something surprising and delightful.
Though God may have abandoned His temple, He hasn’t abandoned His people.
There’s a future beyond captivity and a hope for Israel, for all nations, and even for all of creation. A new king will rise who will be like no other.
The Spirit of the Living God rekindles hope among a discouraged Israel, lifts Ezekiel through a vision, and plops him down in a bone-strewn valley. The landscape likely makes Ezekiel queasy, as these are human bones and touching them serves as a fast pass to becoming unclean. Skulls and scapulas. Vertebrae and ribs. Femurs and phalanges. Shoulder blades and tailbones as far as the eye can see.
“Can these bones live?” the Lord asks.
Unsure of how to respond, Ezekiel confesses, “Only God knows.”
I suspect the Lord takes pleasure in the prophet’s humble response, because He invites Ezekiel into the process of speaking life into this graveyard. Ezekiel closes his eyes and prophesies.
Not once, but twice, the Lord declares to the bones that when ruach is in you, then you will come to life. The gripping scene continues:
And as I was prophesying, there was a noise,
a rattling sound, and the bones came together,
bone to bone. I looked, and tendons and
flesh appeared on them and skin covered
them, but there was no ruach in them.
To envision this, lean in and listen. Barely a shadow can be made out in the near pitch darkness. Ezekiel paces through the bone-strewn alley, following the Lord across the valley floor. The dry, white, sun-bleached skeletons are the only objects bright enough to reflect the dim light. The Lord commands Ezekiel to prophesy to the bones. Ezekiel doesn’t flinch; he simply obeys. The guttural syllables echoing off the surrounding hills are soon joined by a soft rustle that grows into a steady shuffling — before, behind, all around Ezekiel.
Close your eyes and listen as the words are punctuated by the bang of hard objects clacking against one another. Ezekiel’s words are drowned out as the constant rattle rises to a raucous clamor. “Then you will know that I am the Lord,” Ezekiel pronounces into the storm of noise. He looks on as the valley fills with thwacking — no, snapping — as if tens of thousands of workers are slapping mortar on bricks throughout the valley. Then, a mysterious rush like tens of thousands of tent lashes being tightened in a camp. Next, dead silence. Before Ezekiel’s eyes, these thwacking and stretching tendons and flesh appear on the assembled bones. The sequence is no accident.
Anyone who has witnessed the slaughter of an animal, whether in antiquity or today, understands this order is the reversal of the decomposition process.
It’s as if God has hit the rewind button, not in an instant but in phases — a reminder that coming back to life takes time. Whether it takes three days or fifty days or four hundred years, you can’t rush a resurrection — let alone predict how long it will take. The prophet stands before the dead bones and observes, “There was no ruach in them.”
The Lord commands Ezekiel:
Prophesy to the ruach; prophesy, son of man, and
say to it, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says:
Come, ruach, from the four ruach and ruach into
these slain, that they may live.’ ” So I prophesied as
he commanded me, and ruach entered them; they
came to life and stood up on their feet — a vast army.
Ezekiel obeys and the Spirit breathes life. Diaphragms rise and descend. Coughs release at the flood of oxygen. Gleaming sparkles light up eyes. Fingers and toes wiggle. Torsos rise. Imagine smiles sweeping across faces. Gusty laughter breaking free.
- Through this vision, the Spirit reveals to the prophet and to us that life comes from the Spirit and is also restored by the Spirit.
Beyond the veil of impossibility, the Spirit breathes life into barren places and resurrects hope from the ashes. Even in the darkest nights, the work of ruach continues, weaving threads of redemption into the fabric of existence. Not even death can halt the purposes of God.
The apostle Paul echoes this refrain centuries later when he declares:
The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead,
lives in you. And just as God raised Christ Jesus
from the dead, he will give life to your mortal
bodies by this same Spirit living within you.
Notice how ruach works among the lifeless. The return to life isn’t accomplished in a single action or movement. The Spirit’s work unfolds over time, rather than in an instant. The ruach moves through the in-between at a sacred pace through this sacred space. And often we are required to wait.
Maybe you’re waiting for something right now. Maybe you’re waiting for your child to come to faith — or return to it. Or you’re waiting to meet that special someone who will become your spouse. Maybe you’re waiting for the job that can help you pay rent. Or for the test results to reveal the next steps. Or you’re waiting for a house to sell or to be built.
It’s easy to get impatient, to lose hope. We don’t like to wait. We want God to work pronto!, in the way we expect, using the means we expect, on the timeline we expect. But the Spirit of the Living God works through stages, carefully and purposefully bringing about new life over time.
When we begin to recognize that provision and grace and healing often come in stages, our hope will expand.
Remember this: Just because you don’t see something happening doesn’t mean the Spirit isn’t working in the waiting.
Excerpted with permission from The God You Need to Know by Margaret Feinberg, copyright Margaret Feinberg.
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Your Turn
Are you waiting right now? You’re not alone. God hasn’t abandoned you! The Spirit of the Living God will rekindle your hope and make dry bones dance! Wait in hope as He works on your behalf. ~ Devotionals Daily
