“You can always tell what someone loves by how they respond to it.”
If you love a football team, you might wave your arms, shout, holler, jump up and down. If you love your fiance, you might prepare for them the best of what you have in your cupboards, you might run to them with arms open wide; or hold their hand, desiring to talk to them day and night.
Yet, often times, we give God less. We hunger to get attention from those who are mere mortal, but neglect the one who has power to really change our circumstances.
I remember him sitting there, in the wells of revival, one of the first days I attended. I had gone to school with him and I had heard the horrific story of how he was driving. Until a little girl ran out in front of him.
People said he started vomiting. He crept out from behind his wheel and saw a child’s head like a watermelon smashed in bits before him.
He was never the same. We all knew it. Who could be? Yet, something about God-neediness, something in the sermon about giving all of our suffering over to Jesus made him stand up-mid service and leave.
I often think about all that He missed. I think about how God could have touched him, if he would have been open to the message of forgiveness, and grace, and healing.
But, we all are accountable one day to God. We all have an individual responsibility to respond to Him drawing us.
Was it a coincidence that he sat directly before me? Was it chance that I stayed and was changed in a way that I never could have foreseen? Was it happenstance that He resisted the message of Jesus we all have access too?
And that’s one thing about revival. We can pray for it…but only God can prepare us, and open up our hearts to receive it. Only His Word can pave the way to the freedom we experience as a result of it.
We can run from it….but God would rather have us run to Him. We can miss it…but will we ever get to bask in His goodness if this moment passes?
I often wonder about my friend. I often wonder if God pursued him, changing him, saving Him, like he did for me as a result of revival?
I pray so.
But at the same time, revival doesn’t have to happen in a structured walls of a religious service.
The greatest revival I have ever experienced was when Guatemalans in the mountains without anything, sat under four sticks and a tarp and praised Him….
Yes, I think that’s when my heart changed most.
In fact, maybe that is what started this journey. Maybe their reckless abandonment, their sold out surrender, is what led me to run to a God who saves people like that.
People who have nothing to offer God. People whose voices crackle, but they don’t care if they don’t know the notes. People who come in rags, but offer God all their hearts.
People walking five miles a day for water…because they are thirsty. While we sit in our pews and play “church”, not realizing we are dehydrated.
When did we become content with less-than-revival. And what drives some to stand up and walk away….while others fall on their faces because they simply have to have more of God….
Oh God, stir revival in the hearts of your people. We need you. Desperately. Continually. Wholeheartedly, we pour ourselves out to you…
You have been reading part of a series entitled, “31 Days to Real Faith and Revival”. If you have missed previous posting on this series, you can find them HERE
3 Comments
Hi Jen! Yikes, what a story here. I do hope that the Lord was able to open his heart to healing.
I love that line about when did we become content with less-than-revival? Here are these people who will praise God in their poverty..and effort. Do I do the same? These are really good questions for my day. I’ll have a lot to think about.
Thank you for your faith-filled post,
Ceil
Jen, such a powerful post. I felt so sad for your friend. I also hope and pray that on another day, in another moment, he felt God reach out to him and he responded. Only God could possibly heal a heart that broken.
And, I am thankful that His hand of healing also reached me. In other ways, I was also broken, desperate, needy. In many ways, I still am. I am so grateful that He comes to those who know they need Him, and He fills those who are empty.
GOD BLESS.
Such a powerful message – thank you for sharing! & Thank you for networking with us on the CLIMB!
Angie
godsgrowinggarden.com