Dear Dry Bones

lan·guish [lang-gwish]

to be or become weak or feeble; droop; fade; to lose vigor and vitality.

Languishing is the condition of someone who may be able to function but has lost a sense of hope and meaning. Languishing is not the presence of mental illness; it is the absence of mental and emotional vitality.

In ancient lists of deadly sins it was called acedia — weariness of soul and inability to delight in life. We speak of dead marriages and deadend jobs, and to languish is to feel inner deadness.

Languishing is the opposite of flourishing, and it was the fear of Henry David Thoreau that

“when I came to die, [I would] discover that I had not lived.”

Often people have dreams for their life when they are young, but over time they simply give up.

Writer and artist Gordan MacKenzie tells of visiting children in kindergarten and asking them, “Who is an artist?”hand shoots up.

This decreases to half the class by third grade.

By the time the students are twelve years old, only a few hands go up.

Over time many find that becoming what we envisioned in our childhood  is too hard or that it takes too long. And it that process we give up on our growth and life’s purpose, and therefore we languish.

But there is a person inside of you waiting to come alive.

God showed the prophet Ezekiel a vision of languishing: a valley full of dry bones. It was the image of a failure to thrive. God asked Ezekiel,

“Can these bones live?” and Ezekiel answered, “You alone know.” God did know, and he made them come alive.

And today whatever circumstance, challenges you may face in your life, I am confident that whatever life throws at you, it will not overthrow you.