Praying for Revival

I've been reading a great book recently by Roberts Liardon. It's called 'God's Generals - The Revivalists' and is a history of just some of the key people in revivals between mid 18th century to the present day (check out www.godsgenerals.com). It is a fascinating and hugely faith building read. So I thought I would spend a number of posts just refelecting on some of the events I have read about in the book.

The one things that stands out above all others as I read this book is that prayer is so central to seeing revival come. The book starts with just a brief story of the Moravians who had such a major influence on John and Charles Wesley. These were followers of the teaching of John Hus (left), who was burned at the stake for preaching against the doctrines of the Catholic Church in July 1415. They had spent many years simply looking for a place to worship until they settled in Herrnhut, Germany. In the August of 1727 they began to experience an outpouring of the Holy Spirit on their churches. This in turn led to a growing passion and conviction to take the Gospel to the ends of the earth and a desire for the power to make it happen. This led to them agreeing together to pray round the clock for the gospel to be spread and revival to come. This they did 24/7 for 100 years. Those 100 years saw them send out more missionaries than any other church at that time. It was also a time of tremendous revivals in the UK and America.

That same emphasis on prayer is then seen in the life of every revivalist that Liardon looks at. It is particularly evident in the life of Charles Finney who would send a colleague, Daniel Nash, ahead of him by 3 or 4 weeks into whatever city or town he was visiting to gather people to pray. Nash would pray with power and faith, Finney would preach and the Lord would do the rest.

What is evident as you read of the lives of these saints is that they prayed because they desperately wanted to see unchurched people saved and knew how desperately they needed the Spirit's power if that were to happen.

It is really easy to read these stories of the great men and women of God and feel guilty that our prayer lives look so weak by comparison. I know that much of my lack of prayer is because I know I can 'get by' in my own strength. I know that in my own strength and with what I know I can share my faith, preach a half decent sermon, lead and pastor, but the thing is I will never see the same results that Wesley or Whitefield or Finney saw. I look at my own prayer life and I know that I have ever reached the same level of desperation for God's power for salvation that these saints did. So that is now my prayer for myself 'Lord give that same desperation for your power' and maybe when I'm desperate enough I'll start praying like these revivalists.