About

Just over four years ago, God began to put it into my heart to be praying for reformation and revival in the Church. For quite some time beforehand, I’d seen there were problems in the Church at large, and in reaction, I began to jump on the missional/emergent bandwagon…

However, thanks be to God, as I was led to solid doctrinal teaching (in particular that of Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones), I began to see that our need was NOT to invent something new, but to go back to the Biblical prescription that is found in Acts 6:4:  devoting ourselves to the ministry of prayer and the Word.

A few years before that time, after being brought to the end of myself through multiple circumstances (including seeing my inability to sanctify myself and ministry failures due to my fleshly impetuousness), God had begun to show me I could put no confidence in the flesh regarding my own life. And with that, He began to impress upon me the vital need to pray more and seek to rely on Him alone –- and not my own fleshly thoughts and schemes.

In late 2008 and early 2009, in studying “The Life of Moses” in BSF, I’d been reading about Moses as an intercessor after God’s own heart, as well as the Levitical priesthood (both of which are pictures of our Great High Priest, the Lord Jesus Christ), and I felt the Spirit’s leading to be praying even more and more, and in particular interceding on behalf on the Church at large. One morning in our Sunday School class, as we were going through a series on the genres of the Bible, one of those being prophecy – the Holy Spirit used this text on Samuel to turn my world upside-down (upside-down in a good way!):

I Samuel 12:23  Moreover, as for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the LORD by ceasing to pray for you, and I will instruct you in the good and the right way.

After that time, the Hound of Heaven would not give me no rest, until I began to give Him no rest in praying for reformation and revival in the Church. Not long after that time, I began this blog devoted to prayer for revival. For more information, please see my very first post here:  “About This Blog: why ‘tent of meeting’?”). I didn’t really understand all that calling entailed at the time (and I still don’t to this day!), but God has wonderfully led me, and proved Himself to be true to His Word and manifested Himself wonderfully to me to sustain me all the way, including surprising me with a joy in Himself I never thought possible!

Psalm 138:8  The LORD will fulfill his purpose for me;
your steadfast love, O LORD, endures forever.
Do not forsake the work of your hands.

and

I Thessalonians 5:24  He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.

and

John 14:21  Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.

All the way my Savior leads me,
Cheers each winding path I tread;
Gives me grace for every trial,
Feeds me with the living Bread.
Though my weary steps may falter,
And my soul athirst may be,
Gushing from the Rock before me,
Lo! A spring of joy I see;
Gushing from the Rock before me,
Lo! A spring of joy I see.
(Fanny Crosby)

If God has been working in you a dismay and grief over the current state of His Church and of Christianity at large, then I invite you to prayerfully browse through my site. I pray God might use something I've written here to be an encouragement to you as you seek His face to shine upon His people once more for the sake of His name. Or, for those of you who've not yet have a view of the ruins (think Nehemiah) and/or have not yet received a burden to pray, my prayer is that God might use something I've written to kindle a desire in you to seek His face, and plead for Him day and night to breathe life into the valley of very dry bones. We are in desperate need of God Himself to rend the heavens and come into our midst once again. As Jonathan Edwards wrote in“An Humble Attempt to Promote Explicit Agreement and Visible Union of God’s People, in Extraordinary Prayer, for the Revival of Religion and the Advancement of Christ’s Kingdom of Earth”:

The good, that shall be sought by prayer; which is God himself. It is said once and again, “They shall go to pray before the Lord, and to seek the Lord of hosts.” [Zech. viii. 21] This is the good they ask for, and seek by prayer, The Lord of hosts himself. To seek God, as the expression may perhaps be sometimes used in Scripture, may signify no more than seeking the favour or mercy of God. And if it be taken so here, praying before the Lord, and seeking the Lord of hosts, must be synonymous expressions. And it must be confessed to be a common thing in Scripture, to signify the same thing repeatedly, by various expressions of the same import, for the greater emphasis. But certainly that expression of seeking the Lord, is very commonly used to signify something more; it implies that God himself  is the great good desired and sought after; that the blessings pursued are God’s gracious presence, the blessed manifestations of him, union and intercourse with him; or, in short, God’s manifestations and communications of himself by his Holy Spirit. Thus the psalmist desired God, thirsted after him, and sought him. (Psal. xiii. 1, 2, 8.) “O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee. My flesh longeth for thee, in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is; to see thy power and thy glory, so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary. My soul followeth hard after thee. ” (Psal. lxxiii. 25.) “Whom have I in heaven but thee? And there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee.” The psalmist earnestly pursued after GOD, his soul thirsted after him, he stretched forth his hands unto him, &c. (Psal. cxliii. 6.) And therefore it is in Scripture the peculiar character of the saints, that they are those who seek god. (Psal. xxiv. 6.) “This is the generation of them that seek him.” (Psal. lxix. 32.) “Your heart shall live that seek God.“ If the expression in the text be understood agreeably to this sense, then by seeking the Lord of hosts, we must understand a seeking, that God who had withdrawn, or as it were hid himself for a long time, would return to his church, and grant the tokens and fruits of his gracious presence, and those blessed communications of his Spirit to his people, and to mankind on earth, which he had often promised, and which his church had long waited for.

If you have any questions, I welcome your comments below. Please note:  For the most part, my intent with this blog is to lead those who are reading here into prayer. However, on occasion, I will have a post such as this, where general comments are more than welcome.

Yours in Christ, seeking God’s face to shine upon us in these dark days, for the reviving of the Church, for the joy of the elect throughout all the nations, to the praise, honor and glory of our God!

~ Karen
October 17, 2013
Madison, Wisconsin, USA

“Thou art coming to a King,
Large petitions with thee bring;
For His grace and pow’r are such
None can ever ask too much.”
(from ”Come, My Soul, Thy Suit Prepare” by John Newton)

(Please note:  This page was adapted from my About page on my mirror site, Zechariah821.wordpress.com.)