Womb or Tomb

I have been annoyed for a long time when I hear people having “revival meetings.” Part of my bad attitude stems from the number of meetings that came and went and nothing changed in or among anyone.

Another part of the pain of listening to people longing for revival is the meaning of the word “revive.” It refers to something that was dead or near death being brought back to life. In my set of values, it is like longing noisily for the rock that Moses split in the desert, instead of longing for the wells in the land of promises that we won’t have to dig.

Having a greater desire that we could return to the good old days than that we could enter into the days of the future early seems to me like longing for the fish and garlic of Egypt when times get hard in the desert. We are being drawn or driven somewhere. The good old days only seem better than the surprises of the days we haven’t seen because our memory is more powerful than our imagination.

What comes out of a tomb at the Lord’s command can not match what comes out of a womb at His command. In Acts chapter 2, when the day of Pentecost had fully come, Jesus called the Church out of the womb of a room where they had gathered. When Paul visited the Jews in the synagogue of each new city he visited as he went forth from Antioch of Syria, he called the Ekklesia of Christ to be born from that womb that had been impregnated by the Holy Spirit with people who were longing for a new thing.

This is what the Lord says—
who makes a way in the sea,
and a path through surging waters,
who brings out the chariot and horse,
the army and the mighty one together
(they lie down, they do not rise again;
they are extinguished, quenched like a wick)—
“Do not remember the past events,
pay no attention to things of old.
Look, I am about to do something new;
even now it is coming. Do you not see it?
Indeed, I will make a way in the wilderness,
rivers in the desert.
The animals of the field will honor Me,
jackals and ostriches,
because I provide water in the wilderness,
and rivers in the desert,
to give drink to My chosen people.
The people I formed for Myself
will declare My praise.
(Isaiah 43:16-21 Holman Christian Standard Bible® ©)