May 2026

‘I will put my spirit in you and you will live’ Ezekiel 37:14 (JB)

Our Saying this month comes from the famous vision of Ezekiel where he sees a valley full of desiccated, dry bones – the scene from long ago of an army slaughtered in battle. Ezekiel has been called to prophesy God’s favour to the mountains on whose tops the ancients believed they were closest to God. But here we are deep in a valley – can God be there also? Ezekiel is first asked by God if those dry bones could live. He is then called to prophesy to the bones which begin to shape themselves into bodies, first articulated with tendons, then enfleshed and covered with skin before finally God breathes spirit and life into them and they stand and live again; a vast army.

But the words of our saying are not spoken to the bones but to the people of Israel who feel literally dead and buried. They have been carted off into exile. As refugees and slaves in a foreign land they are hopeless and helpless. It is into this situation that Ezekiel speaks these words of God to the people of Israel – God’s people. God declares: ‘Then you, my people, will know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. I will put my spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land’.

Humanly speaking it is impossible for those dry bones to live again. Yet for God nothing is impossible.

Are there areas of our lives which seem dead and gone, but God wants to breathe new life into them in a new way? Are there situations which weigh heavily upon us that seem hopeless, that God is calling us to pray into and to be prepared to be part of the answer to our own prayer?

As we journey through this month in Eastertide having celebrated the resurrection of our Lord and anticipating the coming of the Spirit in a new way at Pentecost, let us search our hearts and minds and seek that still, small voice that calls us still. In faithfulness and trust let us be ready to receive the animating breath of our Creator and Lord who says to us: ‘I will put my Spirit in you and you will live’.