Several years ago, as part of a physical exam I was taking, I had my lung capacity tested. The doctors didn’t use a fancy machine to analyze me through imaging, they just gave me a big straw at the end of a plastic box and asked me to blow into it. Up until that moment I had never blown into a container like this one. The device was designed to receive my breath without providing any resistance – instead of the feeling of blowing up a balloon it felt like I was blowing into a vacuum. Because of this, all the breath in my lungs came rushing out almost immediately, causing me to gasp because my chest had deflated so quickly.

There’s a different feeling when we fill a structure with breath compared to trying to fill up structureless emptiness. Breath’s power is seen most clearly when it’s filling something. And I was reminded of this physical exam today while I was reading a couple of passages together.

There’s a great parallel in reading Ezekiel 37 (the dry bones passage) and John 20 (Jesus’ post Resurrection visit to His disciples in the locked room). Reading these two passages today together gave me a fresh way of seeing something.

In Ezekiel 37 the Lord is showing His prophet at least two things: the present condition of the house of Israel and the potential condition of that same people. Presently they are basically dried up, dead and dumped in a pile in a valley. They are seen as tragically useless. But God is clear, if Ezekiel will prophesy things can be different (which really just means if Ezekiel is willing to say to the bones what the Lord tells him to say – prophecy here is not predicting the future as much as it is repeating the Savior). 

There are two prophetic movements in Ezekiel 37:1-14. First Ezekiel is told to “prophesy over the bones” (37:4). The way the word spoken over the bones is arranged is interesting in itself. The first thing the prophet says to them is really a preview of the second thing he is going to prophecy. He says, “breath [will] enter you, and you shall live” (37:5).  But the first prophecy isn’t to have breath enter them, it is that they would be re-formed and restored. Before the breath (or spirit) can bring life back into this dead valley the bones need to be brought back together so they once agin resemble their original design and order.

That’s a beautiful idea.

You can’t fill a shattered pot with water.You can’t blow up a torn balloon no matter how long you blow into it. It’s a waste of water and of air to try to fill things that do not have the structure to hold what’s being given to them. And God doesn’t waste His breath.

God restores and re-shapes the lives of those who need His breath so when He breathes His breath toward them it doesn’t pass through them it fills them.  It’s crucial to see how the re-forming prophecy is not less important than the re-filling prophecy. One goes with the other. And as the Lord is explaining all of this to Ezekiel later He tells him that the re-forming process, the repairing of bone, sinew, flesh and skin is exactly what it looks like for the God to “raise you from your graves” (37:13).

So the breath of God – which Ezekiel will prophetically call to after the reconstitution of the bone-bodies – is what actually brings life to them (37:9), but the breath without the body doesn’t create an army (37:10). Without restored structure and repaired containers the “wind” (or spirit) blows around but never builds anything lasting. 

And this is remarkably important.

If we’re praying for the Spirit of God to breathe on us, to blow through our churches and worship gatherings, maybe we ought to zoom out a bit and see if we are just as concerned with praying and prophesying for healthy structures and relationships and for the kind of order the church is supposed to be structured by. 

Fire without formation doesn’t develop things, it destroys things. And breath without body doesn’t create an army, it simply blows across the valley with nothing to fill.

Now, with that being said, the connection with John 20 is amazing.

After Jesus comes out of the grave He appears in a locked room where His disciples are living in a state of fear, confusion, anxiousness and doubt. You could say the locked room where they were hiding was a valley of dry bones. Potential without power.  And when Jesus shows up we see Him following the prophetic tradition of Ezekiel, breathing out life. John says, “He breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit’” (John 20:22). 

So here it is! The breath is breathed into the dry bones! An army is being created, a force of light and life that will go into the world and bring change and beauty and joy! In fact the very next thing Jesus says after He breathes on them has to do with the disciples having the authority to declare forgiveness over people. Which is really saying something considering it was only three days prior that the people had been crying out in favor of the greatest injustice the world has ever known, the condemnation and crucifixion of Jesus.

But this was not the first thing Jesus did. He did not first breathe into these dry bones, He first prophesied form and structure so they could hold the breath of new life. But he didn’t say,  “bone, sinew, flesh and skin come together.” No. Instead He said, “Peace be with you” (John 20:19).

It is Jesus’ pronouncement of the peace of God that parallels Ezekiels prophetic call for the scattered bones to become standing bodies. Jesus speaking peace over His anxious friends seems to be what restores the broken structures of their lives. 

There is a difference between feeling the move of the Spirit and being filled with the move of the Spirit. 

These two passages suggest that the difference is found in the what we’re looking for, expecting and prophesying over first. If we desire fire without form or breath without body, then we’re going to find ourselves disappointed because we are choosing to live in dry valleys only occasionally feeling the breeze of God’s Spirit. 

But what if we began praying and living in such a way that prioritized the restoration of our form? 

• This looks like daily spiritual disciplines not just weekly altar moments. 
• This is a dedication to growing up in Christ not just getting excited by what’s going on around us. 
• This looks like continuing to read the Bible and praying each day even when it feels empty.
• This looks like loving our neighbor even when they’re our enemy.
• This looks like figuring out every day what it means for our citizenship and allegiance to be in Heaven before it is anywhere else.

We are supposed to pray and prophecy for the fire and wind and breath and Spirit of God! I’m not suggesting that we are not. But it’s hard to ignore the clear pattern that seems to indicate there is an order to the process of creating (or restoring) new life. After all, it was this same order – body THEN breath – that marked mankind’s origination: “then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature” (Genesis 2:7).

Even at the beginning the order was: structure then spiri. Why would we believe God’s order has changed?