Don't Squander the Wander!

Revival, revival, where for art thou revival?

We call out to our secret love, longing for the fantasy within the tension of two sides of humanity at odds. The thin line of love within the broader relational struggle. The lost and the found, the high and the low, the rich and the poor…the Hatfield’s and McCoy’s, the sinner and the saint.

My heart craves a fresh move of prayer. Experiencing the wonder of community prayer in the past, with pastors coming together in unity to pray for the lost, pray for revival, pray for our city, state, nation, and world. So much planning, but when the day of a big corporate prayer event came, we prayed. The stage was shared. The hearts were knit. Then, an outpouring of love to the community in the form of outreach and blessing. And then it faded. But did it?

I feel those seeds we planted pushing through the dry dirt this week. I feel the beginnings of that time coming to fruition in the hearts of college students in other places. I’m pleading for the Lord to do it again. Here. In our town. In our churches. In our lives. Confession, repentance, revival. Lives changed. Forever. A closeness with the Lord that we’ve only ever thought happened over there, somewhere else, to someone else, in another time. Certainly not today, not in me. Well, yes Lord. Make it so today, here, in us, right now. Move in your ways and in your Spirit. According to all your word says. And show us the way to lasting change. To live in a way that keeps this sanctification and hunger for holiness alive.

The evening news is riddled with murder, violence, apathy and escape. Let us tell you all the ways man can forget. A little pill here, a little lie there. An affair we’d rather not remember, a sin no one can forget. Yet, in the midst of this trial, crime, and confusion, Jesus reigns. A little town in Kentucky draws a fresh fire, and a fresh crowd. The Jesus Woodstock of our generation. Gawkers and hawkers mix in with the faithful. Everyone wants to see. Catch a glimpse. Receive a little taste of the impartation ushered in by some college kids who responded with contrite spirits and open hearts when hearing a weekly sermon. They just responded. No formal altar call, but they formally met with their Lord at the altar. Without reservation, and no need for reservations. Kids moved into a position of surrender and laid it all out there. And God is ever faithful to met us there. When we call, He will always respond. When they repented, the Spirit moved in power. And the students had the nerve to keep on praising. A little school in somewhere Kentucky made room for the Holy Spirit to move. Yes, stay. Yes, pray. Yes, praise. We will make room.

I wonder if that same anticipation was the air in the little town of Bethlehem when a couple and a donkey showed up. The little family were responding to the call of the government, yet found themselves humbly answering the call of God. They surrendered to His will, found their way to a quiet place where the Savior could be born. Man made no room for them to join in the reindeer games of society, yet God made room. In His place. In His time. In a peaceful environment void of the advice and chatter of man.

Sure, the gawkers and hawkers would arrive, the loudest not for another 33 years or so. But on that quiet night, by the light of the star that guided them, a Savior came to save. In years to come the crowds would hunger, would follow, would be transformed by the message and what they saw the Spirit doing. But, in a little town, whether in revival Kentucky or rejecting Bethlehem, God plants seeds, births new promises, and brings transformation. Some might even call it revival.

Lord Jesus, we need you. I ache for this. We ache as your people. Move in power. Holy Spirit, lead us to your perfect truth, and show us your wisdom and plan. Equip us to share your gospel, Jesus. Help us to be open and aware of the many ways you move among us each day. Show us how you would have us be your people in this moment in time, in this culture that gets more wicked by the hour.

Yes, there is nothing new under the sun. Yes, there have always been the schemes of the enemy and the wickedness and perversion of sin. Yes, there have been eras in the past that held out sin for all to see, much more openly and shockingly than anything in our culture. But yes, we are in the last days where social media and our technology has paved the way for instant, global, connection to sin. A quickening. A unifying of all that is satan, in contrast to the beautiful way that God is able to join hearts of his people, both available globally with the click of a button, a swipe on a phone, and a text in the dark. And we know the end of the story. God wins. Every time.