Waves

The Lord is calling us to seek Him and experience Him in fresh and new ways, studying and
meditating on His Word so that He might show us the way to walk. Hosea chapter 10 says:
12 Sow for yourselves righteousness; Reap in mercy; Break up your fallow ground, For it is time to seek the Lord, Till He comes and rains righteousness on you.

We can consider what we are sowing and if our lives are truly reflecting the presence of God in our hearts.  If we make it our aim to follow Christ's instruction in Matthew 6 to seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness, then we can have an expectation that He will show up in our lives and manifest His presence through us.  He will replace our brokenness with His righteousness and can energize our stagnancy so that we might be renewed in Him.

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God wants us to pursue a right relationship with Him, and He will revive and restore us as we allow
Him to have His way. There is this reminder from Hosea chapter 6:
1 Come, and let us return to the Lord; For He has torn, but He will heal us; He has stricken, but He will bind us up.
2 After two days He will revive us; On the third day He will raise us up, That we may live in His sight.
3 Let us know, Let us pursue the knowledge of the Lord. His going forth is established as the morning; He will come to us like the rain, Like the latter and former rain to the earth.

People throughout Tennessee have been partnering together to see revival in their state.  The Awaken Tennessee event went on for weeks recently, and the city of Rogersville, which is located in the eastern part of the state, experienced a unique move of God.

According to Faithwire, the effort, scheduled for 30 days, "is not about any one church or denomination." Its report says:

It’s been described by Pastor John Butler of the East Rogersville Baptist Church in Rogersville as a concentrated prayer effort across the state for true revival in our churches that triggers an awakening in local communities, the state, and the nation.

The initiative started last year when Pastor Dave Clayton of Nashville’s Ethos Church was successful in getting 400 churches to come together to pray for every single resident of the city. Awaken Nashville was a huge success, so this year Clayton and other organizers decided to invite churches in the entire state to participate.

Some 1,000 churches across the state have become involved. The article says that "Dove Award-winning singer/songwriters Terry and Barbi Franklin took the idea through their prayer network and also contacted churches across the state to take part in the initiative;" that's according to organizer Sheldon Livesay.  East Rogersville was preparing for a conference on prayer and revival with John Avant of Life Action Ministries, to coincide with the anniversaries of revivals in 1970 in Asbury, KY, and 1995 in Brownwood, Texas, and they became involved in the Awaken movement.

After a season of prayer, the first Sunday morning came.  The Faithwire article, in association with CBN, related:

As the Franklins led the song “10,000 Reasons,” “One man sitting on the back row made his way to the altar and began to weep and pray. A host of other men gathered around him and prayed. Before the end of the song, the altar was filled with people. Slowly the altar began to empty, then it would fill again. Wave after wave of people broken before the Lord. Jesus had walked into our midst that morning and set up His throne and He has been here ever since,” Butler told CBN News.

Avant had pastored a church in Brownwood, Texas, when revival came to the city in 1995 and impacted several churches and a university.  He told Butler had had not seen anything like it since then. 

Butler said, "Every service for the planned conference was filled with God’s presence. People were getting serious about dealing with personal sin and people were coming to Christ for salvation. Thirty-year feuds were made right, relationships have been restored, and many masks had been removed. People made public confessions of sin, bitterness, and laziness about their involvement in God’s kingdom activity..." And, similar reports came from other area churches.

Pastor Butler spoke of "waves" of revival, stating, “Know that God seems to move in waves. This has proven to be ever so helpful as we progress through these days of revival. We have witnessed these waves. All of the services have been Spirit-filled yet some are just overpowering and that is what we are seeing..."

The article notes:

Livesay noted it seems all East Tennessee is seeing unusual moves of God in their services.

“There has been a 50-year history of intense prayer across our region and the last two years we’ve seen God lead cities of churches together to do prayer walks, crusades, and tent revivals,” he told CBN News. “Awaken Tennessee seems it has brought that extra Holy Spirit presence through prayer and fasting that we see exploding in church after church.”

So, what can we take away?  Well, first of all, we can rejoice that God is moving.  We just have to put ourselves in the right position to receive what He wants to do.  His desire is for people to come to know Him, as well as for those who know Him to allow Him to cleanse us and experience His power.  We have the potential to be in right relationship with Almighty God.

And, we can reflect on what God wants to do in us.  We are not called to be static, but to be growing deeper in the Lord.  He will direct us by His Spirit, showing us areas of improvement and giving us the capacity to break down barriers, pull down strongholds, and walk in victory in Christ.