Bringing stones back to life
Can they bring the stones back to life from those heaps of rubble? Nehemiah 4:2
Bringing stones back to life? A strange expression, but one which has stuck with me. Such a graphic reminder of the devastation and destruction facing Nehemiah and his builders.
Bringing life where there is none. Bringing hope and a future to a people desperately in need of a sense of hope and a future.
We look around us and sometimes all we can see is death. Despair. Devastation and destruction. Cruelty. Exploitation. Hopelessness. Broken lives. Broken relationships. People going through the motions of living and yet they are not fully alive. People slowly killing themselves by their life choices.
This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live. Deuteronomy 30:19
Every day, we have a choice. To choose life. To live life to the full. Or to feel dead inside. To go through the motions. To have no hope. No vision. No sense of purpose.
Sometimes it’s not easy…..
To find life after redundancy.
To find life after divorce.
To find life after a heart attack.
To find life after bereavement.
To find life after retirement.
To find life after the kids leave home.
To find life after a life-changing injury.
To find life after a period of depression.
There is life.
Where there’s life, there’s hope.
Where there’s hope, there’s life.
Resurrection life.
Jesus died and after three days, he rose to life. He conquered death.
He did the ultimate.
He showed us resurrection life.
I am the way and the truth and the life. John 14:6
I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. John 11: 25-26
This resurrection life that brings light into the darkness.
Hope into despair.
Joy into sad hearts.
Peace into troubled minds.
Love into broken relationships.
Lives can be changed.
Lives are being changed around the world every single day.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! 2 Corinthians 5:17
“Go, stand in the temple courts,” he said, “and tell the people all about this new life.” Acts 5:20
New life.
Resurrection life.
Breathing life and hope and love into the most desperate of situations.
All is not lost. All is never all lost.
Jesus can bring the stones back to life from a heap of rubble.
He can build again.
New beginnings. A fresh start.
A daffodil growing on a rubbish tip.
However desperate things may seem.
However hopeless.
However dead we may feel inside.
There is life. There is hope. There is love.
There is God.
Jesus came to show the world what this new life looks like in practice.
Now it’s our turn.
