I've always felt a sense of irritation or anger when I hear people asking me, or the people around me, to pray for revival. For a moment I was self-righteous- you can pray for revival all you want, you revival needing person, I don't need any of your "you need revival" talk.
Then it became a period of self-examination and doubt. I wondered if I rejected the call to pray for revival because I despised the people who asked for me to pray for it, if it was because I doubted their character and intention. Then I also wondered if it can ever be wrong to pray for revival, I mean, how can it be that it is wrong to tell God that you want to grow? Indeed, how can we ever stop telling Him that we want to?
With that thought I entered a phase of unwilling prayer where I borrowed the strength of rational reasoning whenever I joined in prayer to ask for it. Nonetheless it remained far from my private prayer. It was kept as a merely congregational affair.
But reading this article really helped me to rethink my initial repugnance towards praying for revival. Yes, it was a lot about distrusting the intention of the people who would call for it (and I insist that I have the right to since few of them saw the need to explain themselves).
Why I formerly refused
One thing was the apparent vacuum behind their call for us to pray for revival. If anything, it always irritated me when anyone said anything without qualifications as though the thing that they were saying ought to be painfully apparent. As though there were no reasons why we should not follow the call to pray for revival right there and then. As though it will be crazy to think otherwise.
The lack displayed reasoning then leads me to think that they are some kind of sensationalists. I begin to think that "wow these guys just want spiritual high one after another". It doesn't help that the call to revival is usually sounded at a musical (saying worship may be too unobjective) high, it's sort of a catchphrase that worship leaders hang on their mouths, for use to stir or maintain a high during worship.
Why does that offend me? Well, for starters its absence in the more sober moments. Why doesn't the call come when we're sitting around during prayer meeting? Why does it not come during the quiet evening walk? Why? What is revival anyway? From what I recall, it is a period of significant trials and tribulations, when God's work and company can be clearly perceived in His deliverance, when Christians become more selfless and preach the word of God courageously.
Such a thing... isn't it only possible to truly mean it in the sober, quiet times? I imagine saying it in tears of sorrowful, trembling (because we consider how hard life will be when it comes) submission "O God you must revive us".
There is a second reason and this reason is reflected in the article strongly.
I was thinking that people are looking to revival as a solution for their lack of obedience and repentance. When the world goes to hell in a handbasket we Christians ought to feel sorry, remorseful because we stood by an watched. Such a realization leads first to repentance... doesn't it?
But instead, many have taken a liking to responding by praying for revival. I think such a response lacks the self-awareness that our slothfulness is responsible for the state of affairs. At this juncture one may say, "but we must ask God wad, only God can do it". Sure, I'm not denying that. But to arrive at the call for revival before we have walked the path of repentance is an obscene overlooking of our culpability isn't it?
Worse, it is because of the lack of call to repentance that I wonder if they're even asking for revival as a corrective action (which I find to be correct), or if they were asking for it as a "stamp of approval", a rewarding experience for a deserving church.
I don't want to be found praying for revival alongside people who are praying for it because they want to see some spiritual fireworks or alongside people who shift the blame to God (see la why you never revive us?), much less people who don't exhibit any wincing at the world of pain revival is about to bring to us.
That said, we should pray for revival. That much I agree. But first let us repent because we cannot substitute obedience with revival.
“Have you noticed how much praying for revival has been going on of late — and how little revival has resulted? I believe the problem is that we have been trying to substitute praying for obeying, and it simply will not work.”
Tozer
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