One possible answer is that the Holy Spirit, moving among us, makes God tangibly real. That is a spooky, scary proposition for sinful mankind. We're more comfortable with some distance and some room for interpretation. That's been the case since the beginning of the human race. God walking in the garden wouldn't seem a frightful image, but sin distorts our perception and makes us cower in fear hidden away from what is actually a very approachable God.
Perhaps even more frightful is showing up in the camp in power. His presence, all too real, is overpowering, so we'd rather let someone else deal with him. We're comfortable at a distance, capable of ignoring him from our little corner, able to go on with life unaffected. Religion doesn't make one any less likely to adopt such an approach, if anything, religion is that approach, and the religious always fight revival. It is better in their minds to classify revival as emotional excess so that it can avoided proscriptively and dismissed out of hand if it should sneak past resistance and break out in some quarter.
Another possible answer is the human desire for control. That, too, has been around since the beginning of sinful humankind. It's not consistent though-- folk will let anything and anyone lead them down the primrose path, as long as it's not God. When they do follow God, it tends to be the boxed variety, not the One who can meet us up close and personal and rock our world. There are real consequences to God being real, and some folk will avoid them at any cost.
Another possible answer is the human desire for control. That, too, has been around since the beginning of sinful humankind. It's not consistent though-- folk will let anything and anyone lead them down the primrose path, as long as it's not God. When they do follow God, it tends to be the boxed variety, not the One who can meet us up close and personal and rock our world. There are real consequences to God being real, and some folk will avoid them at any cost.
Emotions can be difficult to control, if not impossible. That's why big boys (as I was told when I was young) and big girls (thanks Fergie and Frankie Valli for the info) don't cry. Cross the threshold of uncontrolled emotion and there's no telling where things might end. Don't open that Pandora's box! For the unwilling, all that is necessary is to equate revival with emotionalism and the rationale of suppression is turnkey ready.
To step past the cherubim and see God, to walk with him in the garden, we are going to have to humble ourselves and let God be God. That is a frightening prospect, I understand. But blast the consequences, God is beyond our control anyhow, whether up close and personal or not. Control is just an illusion that keeps us from being real with God and God from being real to us. So, hoist the main sail and let your ship ride on the wind!
To step past the cherubim and see God, to walk with him in the garden, we are going to have to humble ourselves and let God be God. That is a frightening prospect, I understand. But blast the consequences, God is beyond our control anyhow, whether up close and personal or not. Control is just an illusion that keeps us from being real with God and God from being real to us. So, hoist the main sail and let your ship ride on the wind!
Revival awaits some souls hungry for a visit with God, who cast off fleshly mooring lines that keep them bound to the manageable and mundane, and who, with faith in hand, set off unafraid to sail in the breath of God.
4 comments:
Some of us were raised in the stoicism of the church and you didn't boogy two steps and God forbid make any sound. Though at age 16, in that same church after my conversion, singing from a simple hymnal, I ever so quietly trembled with tears running down my face Sunday after Sunday. His love, forgivess, and presence just "melted everything inside of me." You know, God is the creator of emotions.
There is something about when the natural comes in contact with the supernatural (presence) of the Holy Spirit, that produces an often visible reaction in our emotions. I remember the first time I was ever in a spirit-filled/charismatic/pentecostal church. It did not frighten me but rather there was something inside of me that said, "This is real...not fake. These people have something they believe in." Just like when I go to a ballgame and see all of the emotional clamor for "our team." I have found I am emotional when I am rooting for the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.
The flip side of this emotion in revival is the flesh and that is the part that can be confusing to believers, as well as nonbelievers. What is of the Holy Spirit and what is not. I have seen my share of flakey behavior that was no more God than a man in the moon...just a flesh display.
As I mentioned earlier, Azusa had that problem which in time was to their demise. It takes an astute, spiritual leader to discern what is true and what is false in a meeting, without killing the "move of the Spirit." And, sometimes there are just some things that are hard to explain, like a whole section of a congregation hysterically flipping over their pews backwards. This was in a Kenneth Hagin meeting where there was no way it could have been orchestrated by man. Hagin merely stretched out his arm towards one section of the audience and began to pray in tongues and suddenly, altogether, it happened.(??)
I know there is a balance but revival tends to produce a greater outward display of man's emotions. After all, what greater thing in this life can one experience than the awesome presence of God with the new birth or the manifestation of physical healings and miracles. I suspect the upper room was quite a "show," as well.
When man desires to "control," it gets all messed up...either there is a flesh display or no display (of the Holy Spirit). We have to have our thumb on everything, you know, even when it comes to God. The Lord knew what He meant when He said, "Quench not the Spirit." Like David, we might be thought a fool. We should humble ourselves more...He might come more, do more and we would see more.
Nancy,
Revivals are periods when God seems to be orchestrating an unusual awareness of him and passion to serve him among a broad swath of the population, more or less, simultaneously. This movement can start with just a few instruments but quickly has a whole orchestra joining in the symphony.
slw, "a whole orchestra joining in the symphony." How beautiful! Can you imagine, the body of Christ moving in such intricate musical hormony. slw, what a desciption of revival...each playing a very crucial part where none is more important than the other because their attention is set on who is most important of all...Jesus.
I remember reading in the Welsh revival where they would just sit in complete silence, sometimes an hour and then the spirit would begin to move over here with a message, a tongue and on the other side a song, a psalm or a cry from a heart of prayer, all totally orchestrated by the Holy Spirit. In that place of the unhindered will of man, must God be able to do His most.
And if a night of that wasn't enough, they then entered the streets of the city arm in arm singing the praises of God. Such a testimony to humanity that the bars and taverns were all closed and the policemen were out of work.
Where must our desires, will, and hunger be, today?
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