We ask for revival. We want God's fire to fall. We want a touch of his power, yet as I watch the lightning storm this evening I think how:
- We have no control over the lightning. We can not affect its next strike.
-The conditions have to be just right. You might go years, decades, before a truly awesome storm. The Lord works in his own kairos time. A move, an epoch from which all subsequent events are measured. We are praying for such a move among the Brazil team, in our church, in our city, in our nation.
-We can no more dictate the striking of the lightning
than we can dictate the move of the Spirit.
-God wants to give us more power than we can even imagine.
Revival starts with repentance, with washing, a downpour, a cleansing, a ripping up, a tearing away of old rooted sin. It is painful. He wants to scour the river channels of our hearts, to clean away abandoned debris. He wants to deepen existing channels, he wants to cut new ones. He wants to uncover new deposits of gold that have lain buried.
Have you ever seen a dry river bed, one next to a tract of houses? It seems demons thrive here. They are multiplied in the lives of kids who come here to strip stolen bicycles, to smoke cigarettes or weed, to experiment with drugs and sex. Painted on the rocks, and bridges you read of their exploits. You see the abandoned refuse of their sin. You walk with caution feeling the hair on the back of your neck prickle, as if a false step would unleash a swarm of demons burrowed in the sand. An abandoned and forsaken place, an abandoned and forsaken generation.
As the flash flood washes clean this place, God wants to wash hearts clean. He is preparing a flash flood of righteousness. In a storm, as in a revival we witness his power and might. We call for revival as if it is some simple thing we can control or put in a box, but we can't control the work of the Lord any more than we can control the storm. He wants to alter us, he wants so much more than we can fathom.
God isn't content with one single thunder cloud. He wants a regional monsoon, encompassing counties, regions, states, nations. An overwhelming storm washing as in the days of Noah when all evil was washed to the bottom of the sea. When fountains of water burst forth from the depths. When continents split in two. When he did something he had never done before. In a world-wide flood he judged the nations. He is now preparing a flood of redemption and restoration. The people of the nations will not die physically, but to sin, being made alive to Him. A great washing, cleansing flood is coming to save the nations unto His glory. The joy in heaven will be great. The tumult as loud as the mourning was during judgement in the days of Noah.
Bring on your world-wide flood of righteousness, compassion and love. Inundate the nations. Cleanse the land of idols, doubters and sin.
Instead of destruction, in the wake of your flood there will be healing and restoration.
May you be free to work here in America. Break down the dams - our legalism, our doubt, our idolatry, that would stop your river of life. Flow mighty river of life. Crash and thunder, empower your church, change our lives, uproot our sin, wash it far away - to the bottom of the ocean. May we be made clean and whole - scrubbed and filled with your spirit of love and power.
You gave the rainbow as a sign you would never destroy the earth by water again, but in these last days you will destroy the dominion of darkness with a flash flood of the river of life that will inundate all the nations.
lmv: July 13, 1999