A New Way to Be Human - Life in the SpiritShembull

The Wind in your Sails, the Breath in your Lungs

How often throughout your day do you think about breathing? How often do you have to concentrate on your heart rate? Outside of a couple of moments a day, you take no notice of your heart beating or your breathing. But without those two things, you wouldn’t live. In a lot of ways, the Holy Spirit is similar.

In a famous passage in the book of Ezekiel, often referred to as the Valley of Dry Bones, we are given a picture of what the Holy Spirit does for us. Ezekiel is driven out into the wilderness by the Spirit of God, where he sees a valley full of bones. To Ezekiel, this valley of bones represented a people without hope, a life that was gone and couldn’t return. But the Spirit of the Lord brought the bones back together, tied them together with tendons, wrapped them in flesh, and breathed the breath of life back into them.

The reality is that we were once dead in our sin, without hope. But Jesus came and died on the cross to bring us hope, and he left us with His Spirit to bring us new life. We were that valley of dry bones, brought back to life by the breath of life that is the Holy Spirit. We are not without hope because of the Holy Spirit.

But like breathing and like our hearts beating, we don’t often think about the life and hope that the Holy Spirit brings us. Outside of a few moments throughout the day or throughout our week, we don’t give credit to the Holy Spirit.

But what would it look like to begin paying attention to the Holy Spirit in your life? To recognize how the Holy Spirit brought you life and hope? And to look for the moments in our life where the Holy Spirit is active and working?