From all over the world...and from all walks of life...from every background... and from every nation...God is doing what we've asked Him to do. He is answering our heartfelt cries. He is honoring our tears. He has heard us. He has been listening all along, even when He seemed to be distant.
It is happening.
God is bringing the
revival so many of us have prayed for and longed for, some of us for years, some for
many years--but I don't think it looks at all like what we expected it would look like.
I think that most of us in the Church had something in particular in mind when we envisioned a God-sent revival. We pictured people by the thousands coming into our churches and getting their acts together and becoming a part of our way of doing things. I think we pictured it to be a reward for all of our hard work.
But it doesn't look like that at all, does it?
It's not the way we envisioned a revival to look at all.
Instead, what we're seeing looks a whole lot messier and whole lot less impressive than what we had prayed and hoped and fasted for and longed for.
But it is so much better. SO. MUCH. BETTER. Because it is REAL. It is AUTHENTIC. It is a revival of God's intended message from the very beginning of time. It's a revival of GRACE!
For most of my life, I understood grace to mean that I didn't have to go to hell when I died. (That was definitely some good news--no one {sane} would argue that point). I understood grace to be God's gift that would pardon and forgive sins I had committed so that I wouldn't have to pay the price. (Grace
does include that, of course, and would be more than I could ever earn, for sure--but it doesn't end there.) I also began to understand that grace is what gives me each breath that I breathe. Grace is what allows me to have relationships, shelter, food, etc. (And, please don't misunderstand me, I
am grateful that Grace gives me that.)
My concept of God and His grace were not accurate, though, in that they were incomplete. As
Traylor Lovvorn words it, "My theology in those days was that God did His work at the cross and that holy, sanctified living was, in essence, a thank you to God for saving me. Christianity for me was the Gospel of sin-management, rather than a bold, wild-hearted adventure with the God of the universe." And I believe this kind of description is what we've hoped revival would bring: more people accepting Christ's forgiveness of their sins and thereby becoming managers of their sin and behaviors in the ways so many of us have learned to do. More people striving with their strong self-effort (with "help" from the Holy Spirit of course) to live holy lives where our sin is managed well and in doing so, we glorify a Holy God on earth.
I'm so grateful to God for answering our prayers, and for answering them
His way, rather than ours.
Still learning what this Grace is really all about...
Shelley
Hiding.
