Praying for Revival

My wife took a business trip to San Diego with a female co-worker the year before we married. During some down time, she and her friend took the opportunity to rent a car and drive to the Grand Canyon to experience the wonders of God's creation.

Since then, I have heard Kim express with passion, that comes from deep down inside her being, how wonderful that experience was. As she recounts the memory of standing on the rim of the Canyon, her eyes get a "far off" look and she enjoys grabbing as many adjectives as she can to describe what it was like.

Yet, I can't help but realize that when she has shared that experience with others, it is met with apathy more times than not. She is excited but her listener doesn't seem as impressed. They try to mask their indifference with a surface interest but the mutual excitement just isn't there.

Have you ever experienced something like this? You're excited about some person, event, purchase, or whatever and you try to share the excitement with others only to have it met with indifference by the one you are talking with?

Why is this? Quite simply, because they haven't experienced it. They just don't have the same frame of reference. They don't have the same memories and incredibly positive emotions.

Frank Page
SBC Executive Committee President

That's how I feel when I speak of God moving in times of revival. I read an article today in Baptist Press where the SBC's Executive Committee President Frank Page is calling for Southern Baptist churches to make 2013 the year of prayer for revival. There will be those who hear of his call to prayer and will be inflamed with a passion for God to move powerfully among us. There will also be those who hear Frank Page's call to prayer and will respond with nothing short of apathy. What's the difference? It could be that some have experienced the glory of God and others have not.

When I read of this call to prayer for revival, I get excited beyond words! Why? Because I've experienced it! I was a student at Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary when the Brownwood Revival swept our seminary. No one saw God but everyone would have readily agreed that He had shown up. We had an overwhelming sense of the holiness of God which led to deep, heart-felt repentance. Then, with clean hearts and a passion for the glory of God, we were empowered for ministry.

It's been awhile since God has moved in revival in our country. Those who have previously experienced God's glory in powerful ways should allow their experience to motivate them to call out for God to do it again.

There will be those who won't pray for it. They won't be excited about it. But there are those who have tasted and seen that the Lord is good (1 Peter 2:3). I pray that they/we will passionately pray that God would revive us again!

"Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you?"
(Psalm 8:6)