Statues to life

                       A little food for Monday-but-let's-pretend-it's-still-weekend-thought--

     Sigh.  Sort of reflects my state of busyness--that is now veering towards frayed tiredness--right at the moment.  Can we just all agree that it's still, say, Saturday morning?  Boy, that would be helpful with all I've got to do.  But since I'm not thinking the Lord will turn back time today, let's just try to maintain that weekend state of mind for few more minutes and find a moment to breathe deep and savor the invigorating freshness of the fall air...even if we aren't feeling very fresh!

     C.S. Lewis (of course!) writing of the two meanings for the word "life"--
      "We use the same word life for both: but if you thought that both must therefore be the same sort of thing, that would be thinking that the 'greatness' of space and the 'greatness' of God were the same sort of greatness.  In reality, the difference between the Biological life and Spiritual life is so important that I am going to give them two distinct names.  The Biological sort which comes to us through Nature, and which (like everything else in Nature) is always tending to run down and decay so that it can only be kept up by incessant subsidies from Nature in the form of air, water, food, etc., is Bios. The Spiritual life which is in God from all eternity, and which made the whole natural universe, is Zoe.   Bios has, to be sure, a certain shadowy or symbolic resemblance to Zoe: but only the sort of resemblance there is between a photo and a place, or a statue and a man.  A man who changed from having Bios to having Zoe would have gone through as big a change as a statue which changed from being a carved stone to being a real man.
      And that is precisely what Christianity is about.  This world is a great sculptor's shop.  We are the statues and there is a rumor going round the shop that some of us are some day going to come to life."

     Alleluia!  And today, Lord, that's what I need--I need for this heart of stone to be transformed into a heart of flesh pulsing with your life.  I need Your Word and Your Spirit to breathe life back into these weary, dry bones.  "This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life." (Ezek.37:5)
     Thank You, Father, that it's not us striving to turn ourselves from statues into living beings.  It's not our breathe that gives life to dry, desiccated bones.  It's not about working harder and pushing farther in an endless effort to measure up.
     It's You.  Start to finish--all You.  And You've promised that by Your grace and power,  we can do all that You've called us to do this day. Give us resurrection hope and renewal this day.  In You we place our hope and our trust.
     To God--who makes dry bone live and weary hearts refreshed--be all the glory.