Some time ago, I had the privilege of hanging out with a group of ‘bone merchants’ in the heart of Kibera.  These four young men were hustling like all of us do, but they stood out to me because of their chosen trade – bones. They’d spend their day scouring the city (mostly garbage dumps) for all kinds of bones, then retreat to this tiny workshop to curve the bones into different things – cups, rings, necklaces, spoons and much more. It was all quite impressive, and at the end of the day, I left there with an empty wallet, bone dust sticking to my clothes and with bags of ‘evidence’ – evidence that bones are not an ‘end’.

These boys reminded me of that often-quoted story of Ezekiel and the bones that came back to life. The Scripture where the story is told reads like a scene from a movie: as it starts, “old and dry bones (bleached thoroughly by the sun) covered the valley floor, scattered everywhere”; and when it ends, “they all came to life and stood up on their feet – a great army of them!” I love this story!

The two incidents have something, or shall I say someone, in common – an individual who dared to believe that more could be made of the bones, that they could do more than just sit there, dead.

It’s an interesting thought process for our impossibly fatalistic society. Our parents’ generation often points out how we don’t know what it means to repair anything – in our days, if it’s broken, throw it away and get another one. We apply this principle to things as much as to people, and our resilience level – with people as with stuff – hovers around zero.

I think the reason for that, more than anything, is we don’t like the work involved in bringing things – or people, or relationships – back to life. Yet neither at the factory nor in the valley did the bones just transform to something living and of value on their own. There had to be someone taking them through a process. For the boys in Kibera, it’s a dirty, dusty and smelly process of grinding, cutting and shaping; For Ezekiel, it was believing and applying the words of prophecy that God gave him. The end result was the same – something new, useful, of value and life.

I wonder if these young men realize how much they represent the character of God Himself. Just like them, God is in the business of restoration. In fact, I think that’s probably the largest department in heaven. Putting people back together, giving life to dry, dead bones, over and over again. Taking things that seem useless and written off, charred beyond repair and making them glorious. Taking people that have been battered by life and fellows, and giving them a fresh breath.

Zechariah 3 has an interesting story of Satan accusing a dirty-clad priest who had obviously been through the rougher patches of his walk with God. Yet listen to what God says in Jeshua’s defence: This man is like a burning stick that has been snatched from a fire…and He goes ahead to restore Jeshua, clothing him with new fine robes, giving him new authority and calling him “a symbol of the good things to come.”

What hope there is in the restoring hands of the Master!