Speak Life
When I hear the phrase, “speak life”, a lot of things come to my mind. One of the things that comes to my mind is the song by Toby Mac, “Speak Life”. Then I started praying about what the phrase, “speak life” means, and God brought to my mind Ezekiel and the dry bones. If you don’t know what I am talking about, it is found in Ezekiel 37: 1-14. It says,
“The hand of the Lord was on me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. 2 He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. 3 He asked me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” I said, “Sovereign Lord, you alone know.” 4 Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! 5 This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath[a] enter you, and you will come to life. 6 I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.’” 7 So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. 8 I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them. 9 Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Come, breath, from the four winds and breathe into these slain, that they may live.’” 10 So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army. 11 Then he said to me: “Son of man, these bones are the people of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.’ 12 Therefore prophesy and say to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: My people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel. 13 Then you, my people, will know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. 14 I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the Lord have spoken, and I have done it, declares the Lord.’”
I then had the realization that while we may not be in a literal place where we are walking around dry bones and God wants us to speak life to them like He did with Ezekiel, but we do have dry bones in our life. What I mean is when we don’t speak kindly to ourselves, or we may not think that good things will come to us (or the enemy comes at us and says that it is never going to happen), it is like we are making “dry bones” in our life. What we need to do is speak God’s truth in our life. We need to speak those kind words like Proverbs 16: 24, which says, “Pleasant words are a honeycomb, sweet to the taste and health to the body.” So when we are speaking kind words to ourselves and others, we are speaking life and healing to those, “dry bones”.
When we see someone struggling, we have the ability to change their outlook on a situation. We can speak a word to them (through a text message, call, letter, you get the idea) and we are speaking life into their life. Sometimes, God will give you a word of encouragement or will ask you to pray for someone and then to send a quick message to them and it can turn their entire situation around. I can’t tell you how many times I have received a message from someone who sent an encouraging word and it changed my day. The person literally spoke life to me and made all the difference.
About the author:
Hello, my name is Abby. I love Jesus, my family, friends, and coffee. I met my husband in high school, but we didn’t get married for almost 10 years after we first met. We have two very active boys that love to keep us on our toes. My husband and I both homeschool our oldest. When I am not busy homeschooling or doing things with my family or friends, I primarily bake cupcakes.