I've had some pretty cool "God experiences" in my life. It's tempting to always want to have them happen again. In fact, sometimes you think you should be living the spiritual-high feeling all the time. I've found that this isn't real life spiritually or in any other human relationship for that matter. The following is a blog post by a guy I really respect named Wayne Jacobsen. I hope it gives you a new perspective like it did for me.
It’s
an amazing moment when a butterfly hatches from her chrysalis,
flexes her wings until they dry, and then takes flight discovering what it
is like to be a butterfly instead of a caterpillar. We get to
enjoy this little miracle in Sara’s garden almost every year. But it never
happens at the same place twice.
Sometime
next month thousands of people are set to gather in a stadium in Southern
California on the 110th Anniversary of the beginning of the Azusa
Street Revival in hopes of gathering 100,000 people
to call down a great, last-day revival. This is only the most
recent of numerous attempts to get God to act, all driven by “words from the
Lord” and interpretations of dreams in hopes that some day “stadium
Christianity” will take over the world where gatherings of Christians will
replace sports contests in our largest stadiums.
Everywhere
I’ve gone on this trip I’ve been asked what I make of all this and if I’m
involved. I’m not. Honestly, I don’t find the prospect very engaging for
a number of reasons. Jesus seemed to want us to make prayer a private matter
not a public display. He seemed to indicate that praying with 100,000
people has no more power than two or three agreeing in his name. I also
find it strange that the 110th (really, not 100th?) anniversary of
a past moment of God’s visitation would be significant to God in any way.
I also find a large crowd of people trying to “call down” revival seems
more reminiscent of Baal’s prophets trying to call down their false god, rather
than Elijah’s simple proclamation that God simply make himself known as the
one, true God. (I Kings 18)
Jesus
never indicated that praying in large gatherings would usher in a world-wide
revival. He said that when we were loved enough by him to love others in the
same way the whole world would come to know who he is. That’s where I want to
invest my time and attention.
Thus
I am not looking for some great revival as just another “event” that will
have it’s day in the sun then fade away like all the others. In fact, I see
revival happening all over the world right now. I see spiritual hunger
emerging and tens of thousands of people that I know, opening to God in a fresh
way, learning to live in his love and share it with others freely.
Something amazing is already happening that is not controlled or promoted
by humanity and yet is filled with the richness of the Living Jesus. I find
that much more engaging. So, no, I’m not involved nor do I have any hope that
this event just won’t be another in a long line of prayer meetings, summits,
and rallies that smell more of human effort than the fresh wind of the Spirit.
Of
course, I could be wrong about this. God might actually be leading them
and something significant will happen that day. I’ll be the first to apologize
if I’m wrong, but I’ve never seen this kind of thing fulfill the promises of
its organizers. It may feel spectacular while people are there, but they will
go back to their homes and wonder what it was all about. This is not the way
God seems to work. And by that I am not casting aspersions on the hopes
or motives of those who feel inclined to plan or attend these events. For the
most part I know them to be well-intentioned people who sincerely want God
to do something in our day. But I am not hopeful that this is
the means to the end that they want, or even that the revival they are
looking for is very different from what he is already doing in the world to
draw people to himself without named celebrities on the stage.
I
don’t chase these things around any more than I hang out beside a spent
chrysalis hoping another butterfly will emerge. Life happened there once and it
will not do so again. When another butterfly hatches it will come from another
place, at another time.
Maybe
our traditions are simply hanging around old places where God worked once,
hoping he will work there again rather than following him to see what he is
doing now. How much energy and effort is wasted by those who hope God will do
something he did once again and again in the same way and come away
disappointed and disillusioned when their efforts bear little fruit?
Maybe
God has moved on and life is happening somewhere else. Because, as Jesus said,
“My Father is always working.”
Maybe
we’re just looking in the wrong place.
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