A New Beginning!!!

So I promised that I would give you all the first devotional that I have written, but first I need to give a little back story. During the Summer I had to take a summer class to count towards my credits to be able to graduate in December of 2016. The class was called Transformational Discipleship. Well little did I know that as part of this class I was going to be part of something really awesome. My professor, Dr. Clinton Lowin, decided to make me a part of a program called KALEO. It is where youth pastors or pastors send teens, from their church or surrounding churches, that are wanting to go into religion, leadership, or missionary work to help spread God’s word. The program is designed to help nurture what the teens already know and to challenge them to seek God. The teens spend the first part of their journey being mentored by their pastor for six months or so. Then they come to Wayland to start their wilderness journey and campus immersion. The teens would then spend two weeks in the Dominican Republic doing field work, getting a taste of spreading the Gospel oversees. So now that you all know the backstory let me get into my first written devotional.

The week before we were supposed to leave for the wilderness journey, I had leadership training with my fellow KALEO leaders. On I believe the third day of training Dr. Lowin asked me to prepare a devotional for our next meeting. The only criteria for the devotional was that it had to pertain to what we were getting ready to do with those teens.It also had to touch bases on separation, liminality and re-corporation. I said okay. To be honest I had no idea what I was doing or getting into. I asked my boss/friend Beth Hoffman what might be a good topic or book to use for the devotion. She had mentioned doing the devotional on Ezekiel 37:1-14, “The Valley of the Dry Bones.” I read the scripture and thought that I could use it. Beth also helped me form the devotion to fit the criteria. Below is my written devotional document word for word. I hope that when you all read it that it at least makes sense.

Ezekiel 37:1-14

Valley of the Dry Bones

What do you all think the bones represent? Why did God use Ezekiel?

Some people think or believe (and so do I) that it could be man’s spirituality without God.

The dry bones for us, the leaders of KALEO, could be these teens/young adults that we are going to be with in the wilderness.

When God tells Ezekiel to prophesy to the bones and tells them how God will restore them, is when they start to be restored. God could have done this on His own, but He chose to have Ezekiel help Him. Here is a question to ponder…..Why? When the bones have muscle (sinews) and skin they are still dead because they do not have breath. Ezekiel had to prophesy to the four winds of the earth and tell them to breathe into the bones. Only then that life and breathe came into the bones, and they became a great army.

To me the wind represents the Holy Spirit inside of us and we are His army. We can speak the Word of God to the dry bones (the teens/young adults). This next week (wilderness journey) we get to speak life to these teens, nurture them, and help them grow along the way.

Separation – verse two; “our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.” These teens are going to be separated from their friends, their family, and their comfort zones of home, to be nurtured. They are leaving behind their old self.

Liminality –  verse thirteen;  “You shall know that I am Lord,” the threshold over realizing who they are and who God really is. They will be finding their identities in Christ.

Re-corporation – when they come back from the wilderness journey, they can say they did it. They will have their new self. They will be set a part, like it says in verse twenty-eight , “The nations also will know that I, the Lord, sanctify (set apart) Israel, when My sanctuary is in their midst forevermore.”

Going back to Ezekiel – I think God chose Ezekiel because God wanted to show him His power, His glory, and His might. He wanted to work in Ezekiel to be able to work through him. Ezekiel spoke life and truth into the bones.

God is already working in us (KALEO leaders), but we need to believe that God will work through us. Also a thing to remember is we are being called to lead these teens/young adults, but at the same time God will use them as He used Ezekiel to help us grow as well.

I want to challenge you all going into this next week. Think of these teens/young adults as the dead bodies, and them needing the breathe to live. We are that breathe. We are here to speak the life to the, to help them along their journey. So as we draw closer, think of this story and how might we be like Ezekiel.