And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. (ESV)

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. (NIV)

You look over a valley. Dead quiet… Except for the chilling wind dragging across the dust. And the sound beneath your feet, something breaking every time you take a hesitant step.

Your eyes are still adjusting. You squint, trying to see farther. 

Then you notice it: Bones. Everywhere.

Covering the hillside. Filling the entire valley. It’s empty, lifeless, and dark. Whatever was here before is long gone.

This is the place where the Lord brought Ezekiel. The valley of dry bones. 

Disobedient Israel ran far from God, not once, not twice, but too many times to even count. 

They complained, turned their backs, looked for life in dead places, and tried to make their own joy and even false gods out of joyless and lifeless things. Their wickedness had grown so overwhelming that the consequence for this was their exile from the promised land into Babylon.  Yet, we know God remains faithful. 

God took Ezekiel to this place not just to show him some dry bones but to show him how He would bring them back to life. Not to leave him in the dust—but to remind him what only He can do: I will breathe into these bones, and they will live.

Because that’s who God is.

He meets us in our driest and darkest places. The places where we think, “There’s no way forward from here. This is beyond repair.”

But Jesus stepped into our valley of dry bones. Saw all of it. Every failure, every betrayal, every dead place, and chose to give His life anyway. For you. For me. 

To make our dead hearts alive again.

God didn't just give us a clean slate. He didn’t just clean us up. He remade us. Gave us new hearts and new desires. 

Now, He’s teaching us to walk in step with it. 

And maybe, just maybe, become the people who help others find breath again, too.

Written by Blake Stanley