Scottish revivalist Duncan Campbell said, ‘Show me a people on their faces before God – gripped in the unction of prayer and I will show you a people ready for revival.’ He defined revival as ‘a moving of God whereby the whole community suddenly becomes God-conscious before anyone says a word about God.’ 

My heart has been heavy this week, and tonight especially as we have just lost a woman who was a bright spark in this nation’s governemnt and her children have lost their mother. So much pain and turmoil, oppression and darkness in our world right now, deception and twisted thinking wreaking havoc. My Facebook feed has not cheered me at all but weighed my heart more as I have sadly read posts by Christians who, in their political zeal, have seemingly forgotten the role of ambassador Jesus has bestowed upon us. I will stop there as there is much more I would like to say but it is unecessary and not related really to what I do want to say.

What I want to say – or ask – is, when we will we as the people of God say “Enough!“?  And I ask this of myself as well. When will we say “Enough” by throwing ourselves into prayer like never before, beseeching God on behalf of not just our own nations, but the nations of the world? When will we say “Enough” by choosing to intentionally live and speak in the direct opposite spirit of the hatred, biases, prejudices, dishonour, fear and despair that are swirling about us at this time? When will we say “Enough” by not just singing about but truly living lives laid down to the One who gave it all? When will we say “Enough” by making the dreams of God and the establishing of His kingdom priority over our striving for comfortable lives that revolve around our own personal happiness? When will we say “Enough” by actively seeking the Spirit’s empowerment and speaking boldly in the face of our own fears to our friends, colleagues, classmates, neighbours, hairdressers and postmen about the One who offers eternal Life and Hope so that if they find themselves in the midst of a tragedy like Orlando, they have at least had the opportunity to know Him? When will we say “Enough” by letting go of our precious nationalistic attitudes and ways of thinking to embrace the fact that we are “strangers and aliens” in this world and have one mission to complete that has more to do with a heavenly kingdom than these temporary kingdoms of dust? When will we say “Enough” by spending less energy on maintaining our church buildings, programs and structures to spend more energy equipping our people to actually be out where all the pain and turmoil is?

When the tragedy in Orlando happened, I found myself wondering what could have possibly been different if some of God’s kids had been hanging out in that club, talking to people about the Jesus they follow? Maybe nothing would have been different. Yet somehow, I believe a couple of Jesus carriers with faith and surrender like we see in the book of Acts could have made a world of difference!

I was thinking tonight how it feels like the world around us has suddenly become much more chaotic, mad, dark. Then I thought of stories of the Bible and how those such as  Elisha, Daniel, the first Church would have definitely felt the same way about the time they lived in. What was their response? Prayer. Every time. Prayer. Then action. Action that was a response to what God revealed in the place of prayer.

Everyone is scrambling to act right now. Governments, politicans, NGO’s, charities… yet things continue to spiral out of control. The world doesn’t need just more activists – the world needs people who live and speak with wisdom and authority from a place of peace and unwavering kindness and love, because they are meeting with the Sovereign Lord in prayer. People who will show a better way. The world needs people who are living out the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5. We can be those people when we, like Elisha, Daniel, Peter, John, the early Church of Acts immerse ourselves in prayer and the presence of God. When we, as it says in The Vision poem, ‘pray as if it all depends on God and live as if it all depends on us.’

Have we had enough? Truly?

1 John 5:14-15 says, ‘This is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.’  Do we believe this promise? Really believe?

Do we believe Jesus is the answer to all of this, that He is our great Hope? Truly?

If we would answer ‘Yes’ to the above questions, would aspects of our lives possibly look a wee bit different?

In the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a man who gave his life for the things he believed about Jesus, ‘The restoration of the church [and I would add revival] will surely come from a sort of new monasticism which has in common with the old only the uncompromising attitude of a life lived according to the Sermon on the Mount in the following of Christ. I believe it is now time to call people together to do this.’

I believe it is time too. So, by the grace of God and help of the Holy Spirit, let us begin…