A marriage in the final death throes, a family broken apart, the loss of a good job, a verdict of prison: these are the Valley of Death—the dark moment when hope is lost and we feel wrapped in darkness.
This week in our Visions of God teaching series, we encounter Ezekiel’s most famous vision, the Valley of Dry Bones (Ezekiel 37). A survivor of the siege of Jerusalem has just arrived and told the Jewish community that all is lost. The people of God learn they have no home to return to—their towns are burned, and the temple where they worshiped Yahweh has been torn down, looted, and burned. In this moment of depression, God carries Ezekiel to the Valley of Death. There he experiences the reality that God is a god of hope.