This post is specifically for those trying to walk in the footsteps of Christ. Who find themselves having a hard time trusting God’s god and perfect will for them because of the roadblocks of what you see. Faith is perhaps the hardest part of following God. Mostly, for me, because faith requires pushing past feelings. Right now, I’m feeling beaten down, disappointed, and having a hard time mustering up hope for the future in certain areas of my life. My usual route when faced with these feelings is to give in to them, to buckle under the pain and the imagined future I’ve created that is an extension of my current feelings into a absurdly depressing future.

There a couple of things that are helping me this time to stop short of getting on the ride towards hopelessness.

• Perspective – I’ve been here before. I’ve seen the consequences of hopelessness and the destination it leads me to. The final destination is nowhere near where I really want to be.
• Recognizing the fact that my feelings fluctuate and will not be the same in 4 days, 4 hours , and potentially 4 minutes. Letting such ethereal, fleeting feelings (no matter how all-encompassing and deep) serve as the basis for my behavior only ends up hurting me
• Understanding finally that I have a power in these moments. A power that may not make me feel better immediately, but one that will help me to know how to move forward in spite of my feelings.

This power is the power to choose differently. The power to decide to trust God even when everything that I see and the voice in my head is telling me that I should trust my own understanding and seek my own happiness vs. trusting the position that God has anointed me for.

While thinking today, I was brought to the passage in Ezekiel about a certain valley. It reminds me that no matter how lost a cause may seem, there is still hope with our God.

The Lord took hold of me, and I was carried away by the Spirit of the Lord to a valley filled with bones. He led me all around among the bones that covered the valley floor. They were scattered everywhere across the ground and were completely dried out. Then he asked me, ‘Son of man, can these bones become living people again?’ ‘O Sovereign Lord,’ I replied, ‘You alone know the answer to that.’ Then he said to me, ‘Speak a prophetic message to these bones and say, ‘Dry bones, listen to the word of the Lord! This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Look! I am going to put breath into you and make you live again! I will put flesh and muscles on you and cover you with skin. I will put breath into you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.” So I spoke this message, just as he told me. Suddenly as I spoke, there was a rattling noise all across the valley. The bones of each body came together and attached themselves as complete skeletons. Then as I watched, muscles and flesh formed over the bones..but they still had no breath in them. Then he said to me, ‘Speak a prophetic message to the winds, son of man..”Come, O Breath, from the four winds! Breathe into these dead bodies so they may live again. So I spoke the message as he commanded me, and breath came into their bodies. They all came to life and stood up on their feet – a great army”

Ezekiel 37:1-10

Understanding the power and love of our God is what I’m leaning on as I look at the dry bones in the valley of certain areas of my life.

I’m going to have to rest on God’s grace and ability to fix even the most dessicated situation.

FOF, OFO.