Where is your Heart on Revival?

It's funny. I often write and circle the word "write" in my journal when I read or listen to something I want to share. More often than not, it stays in my journal and never makes it to this blog. I tell myself, "one day," when I retire, I'll sit and write all the things.

Today was one of those days where I HAD to write. Because honestly, it's been on my heart for weeks.

Where is your heart on revival?

Were you excited and hopeful when you saw the move of God in Asbury, or were you cynical and judgmental?

I've had several conversations with other believers who experienced both. This morning I was listening to a podcast that got my attention on everyone's questioning. They were talking about modern-day Pharisees, that are very public right now, critiquing and judging what is of God and what isn't, as if they have a direct line to God and understanding His ways or His will.

I would caution us all to be slow to judge or discredit what God can do in a group of young college students. Where would you have been at 19 or 20 years old? As much as I don't want to think about that, I do know my mountain-top experiences brought me as close to God as I have ever been. They were needed in my walk and relationship with Him.

I certainly could never judge what someone else experiences during a mountain-top moment. One that I recall the most is one when I sobbed uncontrollably, the true ugly cry. Wailing, you might say. A weekend I felt God so near I could have remained on my face the entire time.

A weekend that changed my life.

Can we really tell who is hungry for God and who isn't? Whether their emotional state is just drama or real? It begs the honest soul searching and asking where would I have stood in the last days Jesus walked the earth.

Would I have cast judgment? Would I have found the shrieking and crying when someone was delivered of demons too much? Would I have condemned Jesus of blasphemy? Or doubted where His power came from when He healed the lame and sick or heaven-forbid brought the dead back to life? Would it have seemed "too much?"

The Lord said there will be those in the last days that deny the power of God. Let's don't be on that side of things. When there are young people (or old) craving the presence of God, let's celebrate that. Let's encourage that. If ONE out of 99 comes to the Lord, do you know the rejoicing going on in Heaven?

The enemy will always try to deceive us. To cause pride or judgment. To make us question God. And for the doubters, I have so been there. I still remember how I felt the first time I heard someone pray in tongues or saw churches worshipping with flags. But I have come to understand that I am the last one to question how God can reach the lost or whether there is a right or wrong way to worship Him.

I think we would be much better off humbling ourselves and questioning our own hearts before we judge or condemn what we didn't experience.

God is a BIG God. Enormous. Beyond comprehension. He will never be someone we can fully understand. His ways are not ways we would normally predict. And His Spirit can and will revive and awaken wherever HE chooses to move.

And what a beautiful thing that He is pouring out conviction and curiosity, and love, on a generation growing up in so much division and hate. A generation that will need to know and love Him even more than we have because they, too, are here for such a time as this.

All that echoes in my heart is, "Do it again, God. Do it again." There is nothing that excites me more today than that thought and hope of revival. A Church fully alive and passionate about ALL that God can do. A Church ready for her Bridegroom.