Then He said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They indeed say, ‘Our bones are dry, our hope is lost, and we ourselves are cut off!” –
Ezekiel 37:11
The people of a thriving and prosperous town situated beside a lake had a rude shock one day. They were told that their town was to be flooded, as part of a large lake for which a dam was being built. In the months before it was to be flooded, all improvements and repairs in the whole town were stopped. What was the use of painting a house if it were to be covered with water in six months? Why repair anything when the whole town was to be wiped out? So, week by week, the whole town became more and more unkempt. The streets were not cleaned, the town’s garbage was left uncollected and homes were not tidied. The farmers stopped working on their farms as they allowed weeds to overgrow their farms. Most of the town’s people took to a careless and wayward life and some packed off and moved.Ezekiel 37:11
A visitor to the town who had seen it in better days asked the towns people why they had allowed such decay into their lives and community. Explaining the cause of their condition, the towns people told the visitor about the prediction of the impending flood as a result of the dam being constructed nearby. After hearing their explanation, the visitor revealed that what they feared was not true at all; that the plan to build the dam has long been abandoned by the government.
This new information changed the mood in the town. The people went back to work and got their town back to its past glory. The lesson of this story is simple: “When people have no hope for the future, they mismanage their present opportunities.” Do you have hope in God for both this life and the one to come?
