Waves Out, Waves In

There are some people who recoil from the idea of a needed revival because they don’t like admitting that the church is in trouble.

I happen to think they are in denial.

But they say…

…pointing out the problems in the church focuses on the wrong thing.
…we should find things to commend in the current condition of the church and focus on those things.
…rather, think and say positive things.
…don’t be so negative.

There are other people, and I may be one of these, that focus too much on the problems in the modern church.

It’s pretty much all they can see…

…ministry driven by consumerism to the actual exclusion of the Spirit.
…doctrinal compromise designed to accommodate the culture.
…methodologies designed to look more like the world than be couriers for the glory of God.
…pastors too busy to devote themselves to the Word and prayer.

But, if people like this (like me) are not careful, our vision gets so clouded by the negatives we see that we crowd out any vision of faith of what God can do in a valley of dead, dry bones.

I found a solution to both of these extremes in a book I am reading of the reflections of Scottish ministers who experienced the revival of 1839.

Let me quote them and pray the quote stirs you like it did me:

“Reproduction is the great law of all things on earth: Day dies into night to be born again to day; lengthening day meets the declining winter and issues in the summer; wave recoils on wave, but the tide advances to fill its appointed place…

(Wait for it…)

“To him who looks only to the recoiling wave, there may seem nothing but decline, but to him that looks to the advancing tide amid every decline, there is the promise of future progress… until the whole earth is once again covered with the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”