Can These Bones Live?

“This Christmas, I’m thankful for Dad’s job with American. And that even though now it’s gone, that was a great run.”

My brothers and I shared this sentiment as we gathered in my parents’ living room, Christmas 2000.

After a record-setting career as a young Marine pilot, followed by a few years flying helicopters over South Texas ranches, Dad felt the Lord’s nudge in his late 20s to move our family to Fort Worth for pursuing a degree from Southwestern Seminary. After graduating with his Masters of Divinity, Dad returned to the air, but hire after hire ended abruptly as the 80s proved dismal for pilots with major airlines declining.

What followed was a twenty-three-year career of home remodeling to provide for our bustling family of six. There were certainly some perks to self-employment, but Dad’s daily grind involved climbing ladders and taping cabinets and sometimes putting up with crazy homeowners (can we say CRAZY) job after laborious job.

Fast forward to American Airlines. After those twenty three years of remodeling, Dad decided to study for flight simulator certifications. He passed and took what felt like a dream job as a sim instructor. It was such a joy for us young adult kids to see Dad doing something he loved. He left for work everyday in a tidy American polo and khakis, joined us for dinner without having to shower and change, and enjoyed a steady, reliable income. Gone were the paint clothes, the jeep filled with paintbrushes and tarps and tools, and even more important, Dad was getting paid to spend his days talking airplanes with fellow pilots. Heck, he would have done that for free.

And then, just months into his job, 911 struck. And American began their layoffs.

Back to remodeling Dad went. Armed with his, “A person is just about as happy as he decides to be” attitude, Dad pulled out that rolodex, let his clients know he was back at it, and his schedule quickly filled with remodeling work.

Sitting in my parents’ living room that Christmas of 2000, my brothers and I felt deflated. Just so disappointed. Branson was ten months old, my brothers were all soon to be married and within a few short years there would be (many!) more grandchildren. We knew we had so much to be grateful for, but it was so discouraging to feel like Dad had the rug pulled out from under him, with no new rug in sight.

There’s a story in the Old Testament where God walks with the Hebrew prophet Ezekiel through a valley filled with “very dry” bones.

Imagine standing with God In a valley filled with the bones of a defeated army. This was not a battleground of wounded soldiers, not bloody and dying men, but all that remained was dead. As they walked back and forth across the valley floor, all that remained were very dry bones.

God asked Ezekiel, “Can these bones live?”

Heck no. No shot. Lord, look around – all I can see are “very dry bones.” That’s how I would’ve answered.

But Ezekiel responded, “Sovereign Lord, you alone know.” (Ezekiel 37:3)

How remarkable.

Ezekiel’s faculties would have told him that absolutely the bones were dead. He just described them: “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.” Ezekiel KNOWS that the bones are dead, dry, strewn across this valley. But when God asks if these bones can live, Ezekiel doesn’t answer based on what he knows, he answers based on what God knows. Ezekiel immediately acknowledged that his limited understanding did not compare with the Sovereign Lord’s.