SPEAK LIFE!

This was the topic of our Tuesday Talk yesterday and is near and dear to my heart...the effects of WORDS. I grew up in a culture that is harsh and critical and often sees the glass as half empty. Growing up I suffered the harsh words of adults as well as peers and still to this day deal with the residual effects of every seed that was planted and took root. Some things died in me as a result of negative words that were spoken to me, about me and over me. Many of us can relate to this on various levels. So, this topic bears repeating.

In the book of Ezekiel, the 37th chapter Ezekiel is carried away in the spirit by the Spirit of God to a valley of dry bones.  Scriptures tell us the entire valley was filled with these very dry bones. A depiction of death, lifelessness, nothing moving, nothing shaking in that valley. And they’ve been dead for a long time. By the look of it there’s absolutely no coming back for any of these individuals.  They’re dead and disgraced because they weren’t even properly buried. Just laying out there in the open. The situation is helpless and hopeless!  The spirit of the Lord asks Ezekiel, "son of man (I believe that address spoke to his humanity) can these bones live?" Ezekiel answers the way many of us would when we’re looking at a situation that looks dead to us. He says “Lord, only YOU know” ...because from what I’m seeing it sure doesn’t look like it.  From what I’m seeing there’s no hope for this child, there’s no hope for this marriage, it won’t get better on this job, my body hasn’t been right in years, this pain is chronic, and I'll never get relief from it. I’ll never get this business up and running, there’s no jobs out there for me, the future is already bleak.

That’s what we think when we look on our valley of dry bones and we think that there’s nothing but death staring us in the face of our situations. There’s no hope of turning it around…or so it seems. But the spirit of the Lord then says to Ezekiel “Prophesy to these bones (these dead places), and say to them, ‘O dry bones, hear the word of the LORD! Thus says the Lord GOD to these bones: “Surely, I will cause breath to enter into you, and you shall live. I will put sinews on you and bring flesh upon you, cover you with skin and put breath in you; and you shall live. Then you shall know that I am the LORD.” And Ezekiel did as he was told to do. And guess what? The bones started coming together and attached themselves and muscles and flesh began to form and then God commands Ezekiel to speak again out of his mouth and command breath to come back into the bodies and breath came from the four winds and the bodies lived again and stood up like a mighty army!  God could’ve done it himself, BUT he told Ezekiel to do it! He wanted him to SAY these things out of his mouth.  

My sisters, the lesson for us today is to SPEAK LIFE!  Many of us have witnessed death in areas of our lives because we spoke it. And created a reality that we now realize we don’t want. Some of us had death spoken over us as children or in later years words that tore us down or made us feel inadequate, incapable and less than and we may still be reeling from the effects of that. Today Holy spirit wants you to begin to speak to the dead, dry, broken and lifeless places in your life and watch them come back to life!  I don’t care if that dream, that idea, that situation, the little girl in you has been dead a long time…. begin to put pressure on your words and command yourself by the Holy Spirit to speak to that thing and believe our resurrecting God to restore it back to life. Mind your words!  Mind your words. MIND. YOUR. WORDS!  Stop speaking negatively over yourself and others. Guard that tongue! And in the face of what looks like an “only you know Lord” situation, say out of your mouth what you need to see God do!  In your presence everything should thrive and grow and LIVE! SPEAK LIFE!  

~Dania Roberts