Daniel 3:27 So Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego came out of the fire, and the satraps, prefects, governors and royal advisers crowded around them. They saw that the fire had not harmed their bodies, nor was a hair of their heads singed; their robes were not scorched, and there was no smell of fire on them. (NIV)

This is from the Book of Daniel.  The three young men of Israel would not bow down to the statue that the king had made.  Because of this, they were thrown into the fiery furnace.  However, the God they served rescued them.

I must say, I have been rescued from the fiery furnace myself.  The unfortunate thing is I seem to so often reek of smoke. What’s the difference?

Shadrach, Meshack, and Abendnego didn’t seem to hang around the fire once they were rescued, and the Bible doesn’t mention them playing with matches.

Ezekiel 37:3 He said, “Ezekiel, son of man, can these bones come back to life?” I replied, “LORD God, only you can answer that.” (CEV)

In a vision, God took the prophet Ezekiel to the Valley of Dry Bones.  There He told Ezekiel to prophesy to the dry bones to come alive.  God tells him that the people are like dead bones.  They are dried up with no hope for the future.

In Proverbs 17:22 it is written that a broken spirit dries the bones.  The Passion Translation reads the ‘dries the bones’ as ‘…heart crushed struggles with sickness and depression.’

It would seem that God says that individuals and the people as a nation can all suffer from such dry bones.  Perhaps institutions, governments, churches, the media, and political parties can be like dry bones, being more about things that hinder life than fostering it.  Without the breath of God, there is only a dried up semblance of life.

God told Ezekiel to tell the people that God will put His spirit in them and bring them out of their graves.  He reinforces what the prophet Jeremiah had said.  God has a plan for His people to prosper, plans for a hope and a future.  God wants to make His people great again.  That is really a matter of the heart and the spirit and not so much the ballot box or venomous rhetoric.

Ezekiel 22:30 I searched for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand in the gap before Me for the land, so that I would not destroy it; but I found none. (NASB)

Last week I was at Scottish Rite Hospital in Dallas.  My son, Ezra, was having surgery.  While he was resting in his room after the surgery, I visited the hospital’s chapel.  At the time, there was some confusion on his prognosis and what to do about it.  I went to the chapel to pray for him in the quiet.

The chapel had a journal where people could write their feelings or prayers up to God.  I took a few moments and read what families had written.  It was heart-rending.  In our troubles we sometimes forget the sufferings of the world around us.

This is not to down play what Ezra is going through.  I don’t think I have it in me to face some of the trials he has faced on his road to complete wellness from what the doctors have labeled ‘muscular dystrophy.”

However, what I read in that journal was almost beyond words.  So many families were facing circumstances that left them near defeat.  They cried out in seemingly almost hopeless situations. Some were down to their last hope and that was in God alone.

I prayed fervently for Ezra that day.  I also wept and prayed for all the children and the families of those children and for all those that toiled in the medical profession battling disease, injury, despair, and hopelessness.

As I left, I knew in my heart that Ezra will eventually have a much improved life from this stay.  I also knew that there is a hope and a future for us all.  There is someone who can build up the wall and stand in the gap for all these who are hurting and down trodden.  That is the Hope of Glory.  That is the Great Physician.  He can do what no one else can.