I wrote this post a while back and am just now posting it. I have rewritten it, I welcome your suggestions, and your feedback on this one. Our country is in desperate need of a great awakening.

My church could use a good revival.

I need a revival.

Except for prayer I have no control over the first two, but I can do something about the third.

Every Christian has experienced a time of spiritual dryness. It happened to the prophets of the Old Testament, the great church fathers, 18^th century giants of the faith and certainly it happens today. Sometimes it seems that God is hiding Himself, though I am certain that that is not the case.

I recently confessed to three of my friends that I have been in somewhat of a spiritual lowpoint lately. While I’m in the midst of this lowpoint, feeling distant from God, I am aware of my situation. I know that I am not where I should be, but it feels as if I’m powerless to fix it.

Here is the question of this post; why is revival sometimes so hard to come by? One thing I do know is that the major problem in a time of spiritual dryness is sin. I know without a doubt that anyone with unrepentant sin will not emerge from such a condition simply by accident. I also don’t believe that God will just yank us up out of the funk without clearing up the sin that we seem unwilling to let go of.

For me, the major symptom of being in this condition is a lack of regular quiet time. When in this condition my quiet times are either sporadic, or low-quality. They sometimes feel like drudgery. Under normal circumstances I enjoy reading my Bible and my time alone with God in prayer is the best time of the day.

This all leads to the next major question; if I realize that sin is what has me in this rut, why can I not simply cut out the sin? I want to stop, I realize that is my major problem. Why is it often difficult to just repent. That is, of course, the key to it all. I can take some comfort in Romans 7:14-25. And I can of course conclude as Paul did ²⁴What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? ²⁵Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! God provided both forgiveness and way out.