Revival

What is a revival? On Sunday mornings we sing “Lord, send a revival for your people”. We often prayer for “revival” for our church, our family, and our nation; but what does that look like? I once heard it described as “God’s undeniable hand orchestrating his people to a state of dependency on Him.” According to Webster’s Dictionary, a revival is “an awakening, restoration to life, consciousness, vigor, and strength.” As I started looking at the previous revivals in church history, I started looking for facts that led up to it. What was the world like at that time? Who started it? What was the economy? What was the basic religion?

The answers to the questions were effortless to find, but one thing I noticed is that the real work of the revivals wasn’t about what was happening in the world, the religion, or the economy; the work primary to the revivals was earnest, powerful, prevailing prayer. These revivals that lasted several years were not based on emotion or some out of the box, feel good, health and wealth seminar; but on being open, transparent, exposed and hungry for Jesus Christ to permeate through their meeting place and meet them in a way they’ve never seen before.

In the 1850’s in New York City a businessman, Jeremy Lanphier, was moved to start a noon-time weekly prayer meeting in which business people could meet for prayer. That meeting started out with six people in attendance from four denominational backgrounds. For all who see that first meeting, it would be easy to give up; however, Jeremy was not going to give in that easy. It was his desperate need for God and his determination to seek God’s face that slowly brought the numbers up. The next week there were twenty, two weeks later there was forty and by a month into the meeting there were over 100 people present, including many unsaved who were convicted by the Spirit of their sin. Due to the steady rise it became a daily meeting with over 10,000 people gathering daily in New York City alone for 6 months. It was watching God’s hand start moving in New York that prayer meetings started all across America. In one article on the “Fulton Street Revival” it put it this way, “Lay people, not church leaders led. Prayer, rather than preaching, was the main focus. The meetings themselves were informal – any person might pray, speak, lead in a song or give a word of testimony, with a five minute limit placed on each speaker. In spite of loose organization, the prayer meeting avoided emotionalism displayed in earlier revivals.”

I have learned that it is not about us, it is not about “gearing up” for revival that God shows up; it’s when we humble ourselves and fall on our face and cry out to God for our nation, our families, our friends, and earnestly plead for God to show up. It’s in our moments of humility and passion that we see God move in ways we read about.