Are you wondering why this world can seem so dark and why revival hasn’t come yet?
I’ll tell you why.
I’m the reason why revival hasn’t come.
Yup. Me. This guy.
One day – years ago – I was driving down the road thinking about a passage of the Bible I had read.
It was in Matthew 14 where Jesus had walked on the water in the middle of the storm to join His disciples in the boat.
The story goes like this:
Now in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went to them, walking on the sea. And when the disciples saw Him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, “It is a ghost!” And they cried out for fear.
But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying,“Be of good cheer! It is I; do not be afraid.”
And Peter answered Him and said, “Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You on the water.”
So He said, “Come.” And when Peter had come down out of the boat, he walked on the water to go to Jesus. But when he saw that the wind was boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink he cried out, saying, “Lord, save me!”
And immediately Jesus stretched out His hand and caught him, and said to him,“O you of little faith, why did you doubt?”
And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased.
The Story….
So there I was, driving down the road minding my own business just thinking about this story.
And I remember thinking that Peter had been with Jesus so long, and seen Him do so much, and I was surprised at Peter’s lack of faith.
I guess I was judging him for his “lack of faith.”
Anyways, all of a sudden, I felt the Lord speak to me.
Now, when I say that, I don’t mean audibly – like out loud – but it was about as clear as it could get.
It was like experiencing Hebrews 4:12 that says, “For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. “
In that moment – where usually I would have arguments or justifications that I could use to defend my thoughts or actions – it was like they were all cut away.
Like I was caught so “dead to rights” that there was no way I could do anything other than repent.
It was like when you have the light bulb turned on a dark room and you can see everything clearly.
In that moment, it felt like the light bulb of Psalm 119:130 came on in my head. Psalm 119:130 is the verse that says, “The entrance of Your words gives light; It gives understanding to the simple.”
So as I was driving down the road, the light bulb came on and I was stripped of any and all defenses and arguments that I might have tried to fight back with.
And in that moment, I felt the Lord say to me in complete clarity, “You do exactly the same thing.”
But not in an angry, judgy kinda way.
It was just like a quiet sigh of the heart, where He was just pulling back the curtain so I could see the truth… revealing the state of my heart and what was REALLY going on in that moment.
What He Was Saying To Me….
It can be so easy to look at how others act and think that somehow we might do better.
But when thoughts like that come up, it can reveal more about us than it does them.
In Luke 6:42, Jesus says, “…how can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me remove the speck that is in your eye,’ when you yourself do not see the plank that is in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck that is in your brother’s eye.”
So what does this story have to do with praying for revival?
Because when I think about the idea of revival coming, my first reaction is to look at how revival needs to come to the world around me.
But when I stop to think about this, I feel my view on this could be dangerously close to the attitude I had when I was judging Peter.
That by thinking revival needs to come to the world AROUND me…. that I might be blinded by the plank in my own eye.
I think for revival to come it has to start with me.
Revival hasn’t come yet because revival’s is waiting on me.
I’m the one to blame. The Lord’s waiting on me, and then He’ll release revival. To my family. To my friends. To my neighbors, my city, my province, my country, and ultimately, to my world.
Revival is waiting on me, and that’s the reason why revival hasn’t come yet.
I need revival to fall on me just as badly as the world around me does.
I think the idea of revival that all us Christians are waiting for is a lot more dependent on us than we realize.
After all, 2 Chronicles 7:14 says: “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”
The thing that really grabbed me in reading that verse is where it says, “my people.”
The verse doesn’t say that all of the non-Christians need to change for revival to come.
It doesn’t say that the world around us needs to change first.
It says that us Christians need to change. We need to humble ourselves, pray, seek the Lord and turn from our wicked ways. And THEN revival will come.
So often, my prayers for revival consist of me asking the Lord to change everyone else so that revival will come.
And, don’t get me wrong, those are fantastic prayers and they’re needed.
After all, for revival to truly happen people do actually need to be changed.
The Uncomfortableness Of Learning to Pray for Revival….
But there’s something that keeps nagging at me. Something in the back of my mind; a fleeting thought of sorts.
Like my prayers for revival are focused on someone else doing the work.
Like I feel that if I pray for revival that I’m “off the hook” a little when it comes to actually engaging with the world around me to see revival come to pass.
Where I’m somehow justified in waiting for God to send someone else to speak to my neighbor.
Where I can get away with not sending that word of encouragement.
Where I externalize everything and wait for God to raise up others who hunger and thirst for Him.
But shouldn’t it be me doing those things?
Shouldn’t my life be marked by these things?
I’ve got the idea that revival – this big, huge wave of change where people turn back to the Lord uncompromisingly and permanently – starts with me.
The action steps to be taken need to be applied in my life first, as the only thing I can change is how I act and go about my life.
It starts with me.
Revival has to come to me as an individual before it can ever touch others.
If I entered into a personal revival first (a “revival of one”) – it would change things around me.
What Revival Will Look Like
If each of us decided to follow after the Lord with a passion to where our actions, attitudes, and appetites were changed – to where we actually follow and chase after God instead of just talking about it – the world would change.
At the very least, with each of us taking responsibility for bringing revival into our own lives, it would change and prime the atmosphere to the degree where the Lord might release revival in our land. If each of us were to become even a little closer to the Lord, the fires of revival would burn that much brighter.
But I don’t feel that this needs to be a message of condemnation or another thing that we aren’t doing right.
Instead, I see this as more of an invitation for you and I to just begin to take small steps to get closer our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Where with each faltering step, we become further wrapped up in an all-consuming love and desire for more of Him.
And in doing that, we’ll be transformed and revival will come about as a natural extension of our relationship with Him.
I see it as us living out John 5:19 where we’re walking with the Lord and do what we see Him doing.
Revival has to start somewhere. And I believe that the best place for it to start is with you and I.
Where our personal revival spills over into the lives of those around us, until the whole world comes to the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea as we see in Habakkuk 2:14.
And that’s the reason why I think revival hasn’t come yet.
But it’s coming…
