Revival Praying
Recently reports about a revival breaking out on a college campus swept across the nation. Even some secular news media reported what was happening at Asbury. Debates ensued about whether this was a genuine revival or something else. While both sides of the argument had legitimate points to make, I felt the best path was to take a wait-and-see approach. I was hopeful it was real and would spread.
Whatever your views about what transpired on the Asbury campus, you are likely to feel the burden of desiring a move of God that would turn back the tide of evil that is pushing us further and further toward the cliff of judgment. Revival, genuine revival, is a work of God that can’t be programmed or planned. If we could make it happen it would have happened a long time ago.
What we can do is pray for it. Maybe the best model of what genuine revival praying would look like might be Isaiah’s prayer which is recorded in Isaiah chapter 64. It is linked above where in the Scripture Reading. I encourage you to go to it now before you forget and read it carefully and thoughtfully.
Here are a few things I notice about Isaiah’s prayer. Please feel free to add to this in the comments.
1. Isaiah’s prayer was full of genuine passion. Even though we can’t hear him pray it, even in this written form the passion pours out of every line. This was no formalized, ritualistic, performative praying.
2. The prayer is confessional. It was both a confession of corporate and personal sin. Isaiah was pointing the finger at the nation, but he was humbly implicating himself in their sin. He uses “we” and “our” a lot.
3. In this prayer, Isaiah is not merely concerned with the troubles of his people, he is concerned for God’s glory and fame. He wants God’s name to be known throughout the nations. I fear much of our praying leaves this vital element out.
4. Finally, Isaiah prays with a sense of desperation, but he is also praying with hopefulness. He writes, “But now, O LORD, you are our Father, we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand…we are all your people…” (Verses 8 and 9). Isaiah is leaning on the faithful love of God in his prayer. He has hope because he is praying to his Father.
I am trying to learn from Isaiah’s revival praying and hoping that the Spirit of God will teach me and help me to pray for revival in a pattern modeled for us by Isaiah.
