Summer Prayers: Lord, bring revival

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This week’s post falls between the Republican National Convention that occurred last week and the Democratic National Convention scheduled for next week. This post also falls at the conclusion of a summer class during which I became privy to the cares and concerns of the 20-somethings in our country.

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I get to ride the waves of societal issues through my students, which is a good thing. Each semester the topics of conversation change. I get to hear them express their thoughts. This summer’s hot issues (no pun intended) were:

  • Police brutality. It is hard to be an African American in America right now.
  • An inadequate voting system. Our vote doesn’t matter. The government is just a big machine. We have no voice.
  • Immigration concerns.  I arrived with my parents as a toddler. Now I am in college and face  laws and attitudes that threaten my future.
  • Economy. We are getting these degrees, accumulating debt, then may not even get a job.
  • ISIS. My Muslim friends say Islam is peaceful. Why ISIS, then? Curious. Want to understand.

The hopelessness this semester was as palatable and oppressive as the late-July sun.

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My heart was more moved than usual. Maybe because we are in a presidential election year. Maybe because emotions are more raw than usual as media reports are unrelenting and visual. Maybe because I stood in front of real people with uncertain eyes and pleading voices just a few days ago.

Whatever the reason, my heart is physically pained.

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One of the photos I saw this week was taken in 1961, the year I was born. Fire hoses were aimed at my beautiful African American brothers and sisters. I had to ask that the PowerPoint photo be taken down because it hung up there just a bit too long and I couldn’t bear to look at it any longer.

1961. The year I was born.

This happened so recently. Are you kidding me?

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We need healing.

  • We need a healing government can’t provide.
  • We need a healing a new president can’t provide.

Only God can heal hearts.

We need revival.

Would you pray with me this week? “Lord, bring revival!”

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Pictures: So this is what I looked like celebrating 55. As much as I appreciated the opportunity to blow out a candle and receive gifts, what I want more is the breath of God to heal my land and the gift of revival. He is the only one who can do it.

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My friend Jewl has experienced a revival and just finished a two part podcast that is very well done, published on longstoryshortpodcast.com. If you want to learn more about revival, these are worth a listen.

Road Trip to Revival – Part 1

Road Trip to Revival – Part 2

© 2016 by Oaks Ministries. All rights reserved.

5 Responses

  1. Well said, Laurie, about the variety and intensity of “crises” (had to look up the spelling of that word) facing Americans right now. I’m in Thailand and can feel it way over here. I too have been watching the presidential debates and last week’s convention and the daily news unlike at any other time in my life even though I am overseas. And so true that “the right” president won’t fix the problems facing our country, “the right” laws won’t even fix the problems. We need to get back to the basics: “one nation, UNDER GOD”. Unless and until we return to or begin to be (because we never really were) a nation under God, we will never see the end of any of the problems we are facing, and the problems we are facing now will not only get worse, but new ones, more devastating than any of these, will follow. Too many people may think the “right” president will be able to get America back on track again. They are looking for the wrong “savior”. It will take more than one president doing the right things, whatever they are, to get our country back on track. The right president can certainly help IF the president sets the pattern and tone of leading the nation to God. For our nation to get on track, it will take the following: “My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land”. Until our nation decides to humble ourselves and return to God we are headed for as sure a destruction equally as devastating as Israel and Judah faced in OT times.

    1. Thank you for expounding on your thoughts so you are clearly understood. I too have been gripped with this reality. Lord, bring revival!

    1. Thank you friend. I will be typing the same message to you during your birthday month later this year. Gotta love it.

  2. Agree wholeheartedly. Thanks for posting my telling of the story of God working in revival. May He awaken us all to follow Him more wholeheartedly again and heal our land! II Chron. 7:14

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I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth. So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who causes growth.

1 Corinthians 3:6

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