Heart Tracks - Why Not?

"Suddenly there was a sound from heaven like the roaring of a mighty windstorm in the skies above them, and it filled the house where they were meeting......."When they (those living in Jerusalem) heard this sound, they came running to see what it was all about." Acts 2:2 and 6

At our fellowship, a group of us gather each Sunday morning to pray for His Spirit and anointing to be upon our worship that day. This past week, I was impressed to pray, as concerns a great move of His Holy Spirit, "Father, why not here? Why not us? Why not now?" I think that's not so much a question for the Father as it is for us. I've a friend who often says that in our prayers or conversations, we say that "God wants to do this or that," usually as pertains to a move of His Spirit. His view was that we think He wants to do something, but can't, due to a wide range of reasons. His thought was that He was already doing the very thing we were asking for, but that our hearts and spirits were not in any position to see or receive it. Scripture points to the reality that what He wills is, and there can be no doubt that He wills an awakening in His church and the culture surrounding it. I know He's sovereign and I know there is the reality of His timing, but His Holy Spirit is always moving, always flowing, always seeking. With this reality, when we pray for such things as an awakening of His church, how can we not ask, "Why not here? Why not us? Why not now?" Where's the glitch? As always, the blockage lies in us.

We may pray for His Spirit to move. We may pray for the awakening of His church. We may pray for a powerful move of His Spirit, but the pointed question is, how desperately do we really desire that? We may say we yearn to walk in the power and witness of the 1st century church, but as Francis Chan asks, how many of us are willing to sacrifice, offer up to Him, everything that is in us in order to receive and walk in that power?

A true move of His Spirit turns the world upside down. It will surely turn our world upside down, and the life of our churches as well. All of our focus will be on Him, what He is showing and doing. Where He is moving. The reality of His Word, where He tells us that "we are not our own," becomes our daily reality. We can no longer compartmentalize Him, giving Him some part of our Sunday, and keeping the rest of our days for ourselves. I think so many of us pray for a great movement that changes everything around us, especially the circumstances and people we don't like, while leaving us the way we are. So the Lord, seeing all this, says in response to all of our "why not's?", "That's why not."

Yet what would happen if, in desperation, we, His church really did begin to cry out for His Spirit to be unleashed? What if we so wanted to see Him awaken His church, especially our corner of it, crying out, "Lord, why not us? Why not here? Why not now?" And to really bring it home, adding, "Why not me?"

I said before that He is always moving, but it is a direction dictated by Him, not us. When we come before Him with hearts desperately hungry and thirsty for Him, we place ourselves directly in the path in which He is moving. And His moving turns into a mighty move upon us, me, here, and right now? And all because the reasons in our hearts for all the "why not's" have been dealt with, and He simply moves...with power, upon us... where we are... now.

Blessings,
Pastor O