Words blazed in my soul this morning with such force that I had to scramble to my feet to find paper. I’d prayed a few minutes earlier out on my front porch for true revival: for such a groundswell of souls saved that we’d have no earthly explanation, and for believers to be flooded by the Holy Spirit in such a way that our souls would be purified with a holy, selfless, unstoppable fervor. I have prayed those kinds of things before but this time I called upon the Lord with my whole heart to rip away this ceiling that seems to be over our heads. The Holy Spirit is moving with breathtaking force in parts of the world and in segments of the church. Why not among all of us?? And why not now? We love Him, too!
So many of our pastors, leaders, evangelists, and teachers are crying out for it. We see glimpses of it. We feel it pressing on the walls of many of our churches. The paint is beginning to crack. We sense a change coming. The roof shifting. We know the sun of righteousness is rising on a different kind of day and the horizon beaming with a new shade of color on young and old, on rich and poor. On all who would let Him lift their chins despite their sins, for our redemption draws near. I feel the stirring of a fresh work of the Holy Spirit in my own congregation and sense that He’s ushering us step-by-step and person-by-person and Sunday-by-Sunday to a place of open-armed willingness for whatever He would give us. For many of us who have felt the breezes of revival stirring, we can’t often define how the Holy Spirit is working or explain the difference between one gathering and the next. All we know is that there are times when we are left to say, “Only God could do that.” We taste it. It’s on the tip of our tongues but our throats are still parched. Our voices may be hoarse and our volume weak but, at the sound of His yes, the mute would find speech.
I cried out this morning for Him to remove the obstacles that hold us at bay on the damp edges of a mighty torrent of revival when, before us, is the deep. We have seen drops of rain but, if we’re willing to be honest, most of us know that we have not yet seen what the living Lord Jesus Christ is capable of doing when He has a mind to pour His Spirit out on millions and wreak the holy havoc of true revival with innumerable souls. We have blamed our government and every secular institution possible when revival has ever remained a matter between God and His own people in the pages of Scripture. They are not our problem. We point fingers at our pastors when many of them have nearly broken their backs trying to drag us to revival. We hold worship leaders responsible for our own small worship and say that it must be the songs.
My heart burns with a sense that part of this ceiling over our heads is our demand that God must bring awakening and revival within our means, keep our rules, and respect our boundaries. If Christ is to do what He longs to do, we must relinquish all our expectations and formulas for revival. Lest we think we can’t leash a work He’s willing to perform, the words of Matthew 13:58 and Mark 6:5-6 won’t peel off the gospel page. We keep getting together and rehearsing for a revival He’s not yet fully attending. Why?? Why does He wait?
I think one reason is that we are afraid for Him to do whatever it would take. We are scared of the uncertainty of revival. We don’t trust God with the work of His own Spirit. He might embarrass us. Or make us change our minds. God won’t work contrary to His Word but many of us must admit that it is not His Word we are worried about Him working contrary to. We are worried about Him working contrary to our tastes. We are worried that He will not use our methods. I said we. I have done the same thing. I want Him to work in a way that makes me feel comfortable. But maybe a true outbreak of revival is not comfortable. I don’t know. I can’t say I’ve ever seen what I believe God may want to do in our day. Meanwhile, numerous gatherings of believers dwindle and die or rust for the sake of routine. Generations are falling away as revival clings to our doorposts. It’s there. It’s close. But why won’t it come on in? We feel it. We hunger for it. Why does it delay? Perhaps there are many reasons why revival waits and we could write more blog articles and list the possible hindrances and deliberate over them and mull over them and debate them and exert more and more energy while we have less and less time.
Or maybe we could say today,
Lord, if Your time is now – and it’s the only time countless millions have – remove the obstacles, whatever they are. Shove them out of the way and COME, Lord Jesus, with a torrential downpour of Your Holy Spirit.
I’m just looking for anyone out there who would be willing to echo a prayer something like this one. I bring it to you in humility, lacking much, wanting much. I do not wish to put words on any tongue detached from a heart. Vocabulary is meaningless without volition. If this is not you and if these sins are not yours and these aches find no place in your soul, you are not who I’m talking to. But this is me and I wondered if it might be anyone else, for where two or three are gathered in His Name, crying out for a cracked-open heaven, that ceiling that we feel shifting over our heads could shatter to our feet. I’m tired of giving God an inch and expecting a mile. I want to go with Him wherever He’s going.
Most glorious all-powerful, merciful God,
Your Son died for more than these. We thank You for what You’ve already done but we beg You to do infinitely more. Look upon this ailing planet, pulsing with the hopeless, helpless, the hiding and the dying. You have willed that people would not die in their sins but be saved and redeemed through Your Son, Jesus Christ. You promised that the Cross was big enough for us all, with stakes pointed northward, southward, eastward, westward, reaching everlasting arms to the ends of the earth. We know what Your Word says You can do and we confess to You that many of us have not yet seen it with our eyes but we feel it stirring in our souls. Hosanna, Lord! Save now!
We who are willing confess to you our sinful arrogance. We have prescribed to You by what means You, the solitary Healer, should heal souls and You have refused to sign Your Name to our prescriptions. We say to You this day, write Your Name across our sky and bring revival! Save by whatever means brings You glory. Bring it any way You like but bring it, Lord. We free You from using our methods. We free You from using our denominational names. We free You from using our buildings though we welcome You to them. We free You even from using us, though we cast ourselves before You at Your complete disposal and beg that You would. Use none of us. Use all of us. Use whatever people and whatever means honors You most but do it, Lord. Please do it!
We confess to You our appalling narcissism in asking You to mirror us. We confess to You our over-sophistication and snobbery. We confess to You that we are terrified of Your Holy Spirit. We confess our pathetic arrogance for having forbidden signs and wonders when there could be no greater sign and wonder than a tidal wave of salvation rolling on our dry banks. Oh, Jesus, that we would not leave You to marvel that You could do so few miracles among us because of our unbelief.
We repent this day for not trusting You with what revival should look like. We repent this day from prioritizing our dignity over Your downpour. We confess to You that we have torn pages from our Bibles and handed them back to You and demanded that You work through what was left. We confess to You this day that the tent pegs of Scripture are vastly wider than our imaginations and our expectations.
Lord, if souls are saved by the thousands of thousands and millions of millions, we pledge to You this day that we will not, in our sectarianism, pick apart the process and reason how it was not legitimate. We are ready even if it’s messy. Even if, atop the beautiful feet carrying the good news, are bruised and broken bodies of willing evangelists.
Open Heaven. Rain down, Holy Spirit. We repent for having asked You to respect our boundaries. We bow now to Your boundless Spirit and make room over our lowered heads for You to fall upon us with power and might and a firestorm of Your great affection. You have loved us so. You have loved us well. Scar our hearts with Your Cross and love through us, Lord. Oh, Holy Spirit of the Living Christ, come without limit. We have known You were able but begged You to be willing. All the while, we have been disabled because we have been unwilling.
To what conceivable degree we could have held them in our hands, we turn the reins of revival back over to the Rider who is Faithful and True and we plead that You would not let them rest on the neck of that great horse but that You’d bid him run.
Whatever, Lord. Do what You want but do it now. Do it here. You have no peer. Make Your name glorious. Save now. We avail ourselves.
O God, I avail myself.
In the holy name of Christ our King. Amen.
Savior, Savior, Hear my humble cry;
While on others Thou art calling, do not pass me by.
We repent for having asked You to respect our boundaries. Forgive my fear. Forgive my blame of others.
These words both convicted me and encouraged me ! Rain down revival Lord and help make me a vessel to accomplish Your will and Your way…in Jesus name.
Yes, this is me, too. And it brings to mind the son “Oceans” by Hillsong United
“Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders…….take me deeper than my feet could ever wander”
Amen
Echoing in prayer
Yes, Lord Jesus
AMEN! This resonates so fully with the depths of my heart and the hearts of many that I know. Thank you, Beth, for boldly putting words to the deepest desires that I sometimes fearfully or ignorantly prevent from rising to the surface.
Debbie
Thank you for this prayer and the sharing of your spirit! I have prayed this prayer for myself and others! I’m no stranger to God’s moving but have been “between the rains”. I have a nephew
Dying with genetic melanoma who doesn’t know Christ. Do It Lord. Amen
Amen and amen, sister. I’m joining with you in this prayer.
And start the revival in me.
Whatever it takes, Lord. Whatever it looks like. I trust you.
Come Lord Jesus. Heal our land. Begin with me.
Yes, and amen!
Yes Lord Jesus! Forgive my own littleness if faith. Unleash your power.
Amen, amen, amen! Praise the Lord our God! All the glory to Him!I feel compelled to share these verses with you all. I can’t explain why, because in truth I’m not sure. God knows though. I’m certain they will speak to someone out there. Verse 8 particularly struck a chord with me. God bless each and every one of you.
Isaiah 45:6b-8 NKJV
6 There is none besides Me. I am the Lord and there is no other;
7 I form the light and create the darkness, I make peace and create calamity; I the Lord, do all these things.’
8 “Rain down, you heavens from above, And let the skies pour down righteousness; Let the earth open, let them bring forth salvation, And let righteousness spring up together. I, the Lord have created it.
Yes, Lord. Furrow up our fallow ground. Touch our lips with coal. Give us the courage to walk even a day in Job’s shoes. May we spend more our of time worshiping You. More time talking to each other and our children about You and less about secular nonsense. May our leaders be brave enough to teach us the hard stuff (when was the last time you heard a sermon on gluttony?) and may we act upon it to His glory. Deliver us from evil that the enemy may be completely incompacitated in our lives. And above all, may we put on Your love for each other especially the weak, enslaved, downtrodden, misfits and outcasts. Maranatha!
I do not know what a revival really looks like, but Lord, I am willing. Bring it on!
Do it, Lord!!
Thank you for giving words to the cry of my heart! Even so, come Lord Jesus!!
Tears streaming down my face, I say “Yes, Lord. Amen and amen.”
Yes, Lord, let your mighty power be known, “bind the enemy and loose the Holy Spirit”! Start the revival in me. Forgive me for all the ways I might be in the way – please go around me if necessary. “Look I am Yahweh, the God of all Flesh, is anything too difficult for me”? Jer 32:27 No! Show us what if anything we need to do. Pour out your Holy Spirit in a mighty way for your glory! You know what I have been praying for, O Lord!!
Oh LORD, how majestic is YOUR name…Forgive us, help us to humble ourselves and call upon you genuinely with such fervency and willingness to step out of the way, depend only on YOU for a revival. Please LORD help us be humble and pray before you and you promise to heal our land. Healing will only come from salvations and relationship with YOU.
Amen and Amen! Praying with you for an amazing outpouring of His Spirit that will amaze and floor us. Also in repentance for being a scaredy-cat about ‘what ever it takes!’ I pray for the bondage of ‘denominationalism’ to be broken that seems to hinder…
Thank you, dear Beth, for this wonderful post! The time seems so short– no time to waste on the petty small things that get in the way of what will bring glory to God. It’s all about Him!
Amen!!! Come Holy Spirit!!
To God be the glory. Amen
For the past year I’ve been burdened to pray for lost family members. “Lord break my heart for what breaks yours. ” And He has. I have learned to pray without ceasing and the privilege to lay my requests at His feet. The change in my heart has evolved by asking Him to change theirs. What a continuing journey. I realize the hautiness and arrogance I’ve displayed by placing my limitations on His will and His work. My prayers have included, if even subconscious, ideas of how He should accomplish what I know His will to be. Forgive me Father for my absence of abandon, my fear of the unknown, of being uncomfortable, for my wasted efforts to figure out the “immeasurably more” that you are capable of , for my pitiful faith. May I finally be able to say with all my heart, simply, ” Your will be done”. And as I am being made useable, “Use me”. Revival starts within each believer. Lord, use us! Thank you Beth for being part of my journey.
Amen!!! Praying with you Beth and so thankful for your passionate and willing heart.
I’m praying also for a revival of Grace among God’s people. May we experience His grace so profoundly in every area of life that we cannot stop it from pouring out of us to others!
Our God is ABLE to do much more than we can ask or imagine! Hallelujah!
And thank you Beth and all your staff and volunteers for allowing God to work through you in so many ways. You all make this world a richer place!
Praying with you
This brought me to tears because of the truth in it all. A friend shared it on Facebook right after I was listening to a song called ‘Revival’ by Robin Mark. Wow. Come on Jesus- we need You. We need you desperately- don’t pass me by.
WOW! Just WOW! 🙂
This prayer gives me goosebumps. These words are powerful, and I am praying them along with all of you!
Yes, Beth, you are speaking to me! Your words express the aching of my soul so well! May it not be my unbelief that is causing Him to wait.
Lord, we agree!
Oh Beth, you have put my heart into words. I have been praying that God would awaken the power of the Holy Spirit in me in ways I have never experienced before. Our church has just entered into a 90 day Nazarite vow to unleash the Spirit with power in the church and beyond. The time is now…whatever that looks like!
Amen and Amen!
Tearful and fearful, but willing. Praying in agreement with you.
Thank you, Beth.
I’m in.
Oh my heart yearns for all that u mention in your prayer! My prayer has been that we would be open to a ” new way of seeing and living” . ” the old has passed away, I am doing a NEW THING!”
Lord, open our hearts to your new ways. Forgive us where we have clung to the old! Cleanse our hearts and prepare them for your glory.
Let a mighty rushing wind rush in! Touch your people once again, and may we never be the same!
Speechless! All I can say is AMEN and God your name be GLORIFIED!
What you have so eloquently prayed has been my hearts desire and many others. Yet, like you, I wonder if my expectation has had limits? I pray in agreement with you and others now. Come Lord Jesus in your way – but come! Amen and amen!
I just began re-reading (yesterday before seeing this post)Fresh Encounter by Henry & Richard Blackaby. In the Preface were two statements that I highlighted: “Revival is not for those who enjoy the status quo.” And “Do not read this book unless you mean business with God.” Beth, you are right. Many of us have been longing for the Holy Spirit to rain on us like never before. Oh, how I crave this and anticipate what is about to happen. 🙂
Wow Beth! So powerful! I am right there with you. God is moving; we feel it in our spirit.
I will keep this prayer and pray it as the Holy Spirit brings it to my mind.
Come Lord Jesus, Come!
Yes, yes! Praying beside my sisters in unity of heart.
Maureen, St. Clair Shores, “Your blessing clothes your people!” (Psalm 3:8b MSG)
Oh, Lord Jesus, come!
“We repent for having asked You to respect our boundaries. We bow now to Your boundless Spirit and make room over our lowered heads for You to fall upon us with power and might and a firestorm of Your great affection. You have loved us so. You have loved us well. Scar our hearts with Your Cross and love through us, Lord. Oh, Holy Spirit of the Living Christ, come without limit. We have known You were able but begged You to be willing. All the while, we have been disabled because we have been unwilling.”
Forgive me, Lord. Here I am, Your child.
Beth, check out http://www.worldrevivalchurch.com. This is the church from the Smithton Outpouring. Revival is ALIVE and WELL in this church, and we share your heart! We pray heavily for the nations and for all churches to experience the presence of God. We are seeing results! It is sweeping the nations, just far too slowly. We need hearts such as yours praying and believing! Come visit us! You will NOT be disappointed!
Strap Your Sword to Your side, Warrior!
Accept praise!
Accept due honor!
Ride majestically!
Ride triumphantly!
Ride on the side of Truth!
Ride for the righteous meek!
Psalm 45:3-4 – The Message
Mere words cannot express the cry of our hearts…so without revival and spiritual awakening we are lost and undone, so in faith, believing I echo Beth’s anointed words and say “AMEN, Come quickly LORD Jesus!”
Blessings all ours and ten-thousand besides: We are believing GOD!
Yes Lord. Rain down, just like the rain that is pouring down on us right now, pour Your Holy Spirit on us and bring revival.
Yes Lord….while on others though art calling, do not pass me by.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOeLa2Qefa0
Steal My Show – by Toby Mac
Oh, Beth,
Many of us are grieved over the state of our nation. I feel we have been blessed too long, have had it too easy and comfortable as Christians. Yes, we pray for revival but the “what if” game again…. What if God sees this apathy on the part of comfortable Christians and a time of testing is here?? We are following the path of the Isrealites. Every time God showered down on them His blessings what did they do?? There is far greater danger in being prosperous than there ever was in adversity.
I see it in our tiny congregation. I have pleaded with others to help teach our youngsters Sunday School. Today’s mothers are strapped so tightly with work outside the home to make ends meet they can hardly function. They have no time for more. Then there are the retirees who feel they have done thier parts in the past so they are leaving it up to others. So, then, pray tell who is responsible to teach our youngsters about Jesus? Many are hearing precious little at home.
I get annoyed with those who get caught up in the hype of a great event and wave thier arms and pray “use me Jesus” then when asked to give an extra hour a week to help out in our churches it does not happen. We want to be used of God but not if it means sacrificing anything. We want to give out of our surplus not out of our need. It is easy to throw a little extra left over item towards ministry but if it is going to take an extra hour out of our week or dip into our slush fund then we do not hear it.
Our ministers are not respected men of God any more. If they preach or teach a Bible study that aims right at our weakness then we go somewhere else to hear a more popular theme.
We want to be entertained and be comfortable serving Him but give none of the sacrifice He asks of us.
I fear we are in for a very rough ride. Yes, I pray for revival but wonder if the storm clouds of His judgement are not fast approaching. We have His promise of His presence through it all. I pray we stay worthy of the call He has given us.
Beth, stay true and bold for the Lord there are many who are caving in to wordly standards and in grave danger of being swept away by it. Our reward is great if we do not lose heart!
Love,
Betty M
Amen–come, Lord Jesus! I believe–help my unbelief. I am willing–carry me beyond my ability.
Amen Beth! I have just come back from a mission trip to Honduras. My feelings have been mixed since I have been back. I think the overwhelming feeling has been sadness. Sadness that I couldn’t do more there. I didn’t experience the Holy Spirit at work there. Was it because of my unbelief? Was I afraid to let Him do His work through me? I want revival to come. I want nations upon nations to come to Jesus. When I was in Honduras, I recognized God has no borders. He sees the land as all His. I want to be willing to go wherever God is at work. I want to be willing to do whatever He asks. I surrender to His will now and forever more. Amen Beth – let revival come – in me, in my family, in my community, in my country and in the world! Praise God for what He is about to do!
Beth hit the nail on the head. I desperately want to see revival. I work with women and children in crisis. The tsunami wave of confusion, evil, and searching for the way to go break my heart. Change will only come through Christ and he will move in his way and time. There is no secret formula and nobody has all the answers. If we let go of all our preconceived notions and just believe God I am convinced we would see change.