Revival

That's a loaded word if I've ever heard one! There are so many different definitions of revival. Actually I'm not so sure that the word is actually defined differently, it's just applied in many, many different ways.

And that's what I would like to explore today. We recently had a discussion with a missionary where one of the subjects we hit on was revival. In that discussion I realized that revival to us as Americans is not revival to those over seas. What this missionary brought to light was that in each different people group, the response to the move of the Holy Spirit is different.

And although that's what I call a "duh" comment, it just had never occurred to me. I know that is because I have been raised in church, and not just in church but in the bible belt as well. "Church" is all I know. I can be incredibly naive when it comes to anything outside of bible belt church! (Sometimes that's good, sometimes, that's very bad!) But, back to revival and the "duh" comment. We (the church) get so wrapped up in our own ideas of what revival is and how we experience God, that we forget not everyone experiences God the same we do.

What this leads us to, is this, revival is a cultural experience. Depending on where you live in the United States, or if you even live in the US, "revival" will show itself many, many ways. I have decided we can't "measure" a move of God by what happened at the church down the road, much less by the church in a different country, or even the church in a different time period.

God will move when we seek His face (sorry, more church words) but how He moves is entirely up to him and not us. If we go after Him with everything we have, you can guarantee we will find Him.