I lost a good friend this week. George MacDonald was more than a friend and I do grieve the loss for myself and for his family. Not for George. He has simply changed addresses. He has begun to receive what God has planned for all of us that are His.

We have inherited some great things as the people of God. We are baptized in his Spirit. We are anointed for His service. We are given gifts for that Service. We are adopted into a new community in which we serve. All of this is but a taste of that which is to come. We live in a place of tension between that which is already ours in Jesus Christ, and that which is yet to come when Jesus, Himself, returns. We experience the kingdom of God now anytime we see the triumph of truth, justice, compassion, and love. These things are produced by faith. But we have to learn to live with the tension that these things are not complete yet. We are not complete yet. We still sin. We still do not desire the right things. We have ears and do not hear and eyes and refuse to see.

The good news in this story is that hearing is possible and seeing is possible, even in a dry and thirsty land, a land longing for rain and growth. Isaiah points us to the real source of this miracle, it is a king.

Isaiah 32:1-3 (ESV)1 Behold, a king will reign in righteousness, and princes will rule in justice. 2 Each will be like a hiding place from the wind, a shelter from the storm, like streams of water in a dry place, like the shade of a great rock in a weary land. 3 Then the eyes of those who see will not be closed, and the ears of those who hear will give attention.[1]
[1] The Holy Bible : English standard version. 2001. Wheaton: Standard Bible Society.

The reign of Jesus is now and not yet. Now, Paul says, we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face. We are becoming, changing, growing. Yet there are times in personal growth and in the history of the Church that God breaks in and fills our thirst and we experience hearing and seeing and there are strange and wonderful things that happen.

Revival of His people

What God offers when we respond was often called revival in the past. God hears the soul-cry of his people and he responds. Yes it is about living in His truth and removing our deceptions but there is more. There is the pouring out of His Spirit which we cannot demand or control but which we are to desire and long for as we would want water in the desert. Our experiences are as different as the way we wear our hair or even more so. Each of us is in a different place in the story God is writing that includes us. Only you can examine your own thirst, you own deception, your own indifference to God. But I do believe that we are connected as well. God may revive one person; that is true. But he offers this to His assembly, His Body, His church.

Look into your own heart today. How dry are you? What do you desire? What wells are you drinking from? How does that other water taste and how long does it satisfy? Return He cries, return to the true Shepherd and overseer of your souls. This is His legacy and His future. Listen to His word.