Stirrings

It's been a while since I've written here, mainly because I've been wrapped up in getting The Canopy's "30 Days in the Psalms" going. (If you're interested, you can check it out at http://canopypsalms.blogspot.com... there's an explaination in the first post and a way to sign up to be involved)

Anyway, I guess I'm feeling stirred up lately with a renewed yearning for much deeper release of the Holy Spirit, bringing the Presence of Jesus in our region. The problem is that I don't really have words to describe it, so bear with me.

I don't know how to say this without it sounding like a criticism, but when I look around the city, I see so little really deep manifestations of the Presence of Jesus. The problem with saying things like that is that it almost immediately causes people to feel guilty, as if they are inadequate or that the ministry they are connected with is somehow being slammed; they become defensive. And that is NOT my heart at all! Hear me: that's not a slam.

I just can't NOT say this anymore: There MUST be more. There IS more. When I look around the city, even in the big happenin', popular churches that people are flocking to, there's just nothing special going on! It's just a crowd. More programs and slicker video presentations and more choices to choose from, but very little Presence and very little power. I acknowledge that many good things are happening: people being saved, marriages being healed, people finding community.

It's just that I look and wonder if the good has become the enemy of the best. Are people so distracted by the slick and the good and choices that they've become content. Look around. Is there a moving of God anywhere in the capital region that the apostle Paul or Peter would even have a grid for?

In my mind the answer is clearly, undeniably NO. Somehow that doesn't depress me and make me want to throw up my hand in defeat. It moves me closer to desperation, where inside I groan and want to cry out to God in intercession. I want to jump up and say we are going to pray, we are going to worship, we are going to lay hold of the horns of the alter and we are not going to let go until there is a breakthrough!!

Nehemiah didn't hear about the condition of his city and throw up his hands and say it's hopeless. No, he tore his robes, and sought the Lord in fasting and prayer, and then sought the favor of the king to rebuild the walls of the city.

The walls are mostly down in our city.

Today I'm just going around with this groan in my stomach, saying 'O God, have mercy!'

Some will wonder what the point of it all is; what action steps are there.
To such people my answer will undoubtedly seem lack-luster:
I know of nothing else that can be 'done' except for the gathering together of God's people in worship and prayer. I know of no other 'solution' except the reality that we pursue in the House of Prayer. HoPE is not the solution, but the activity that happens there is. It can happen anywhere, but the people of God must come together in worship and prayer.

My own personal encouragement is that I know that the groaning I am feeling is the gift of God to me. Such groanings don't come from my own flesh. Such groanings are birthed by the Spirit.

So in the midst of the groaning, I am comforted by the realization that the very groaning are God's gracious hand on me.