Here is another call for revival.

Make us strong again,
    and we, your people, will praise you. – Psalm 85:6 GNT

It has been a conversation with a few of my friends this week. Spurgeon really had a heart for this particular Psalm when it came to prayer

BRETHREN, if you will pray this prayer, it will be better than my preaching from it! And my only motive in preaching from it is that you may pray it. Oh, that at once, before I have uttered more than a few sentences, we might begin to pray by crying, yes, groaning deep down in our souls,” Will You not revive us again that Your people may rejoice in You?”

Is it not true that when a man of God who is called to preach or teach or whose books on commentary regarding scripture passes away – we miss them for those reasons and see our world empty of greatness and declare our world has lost a mighty person of God. I think of John Knox and of Luther and I think how powerful they were and I see through them that we have lost our ability to pray like them.

Luther was a man of whom they said, as they pointed at him in the street, “There goes a man who can have anything he likes to ask of God.” He was the man who, by his prayer, dragged Melancthon back from the very gates of death and, what was more, the man who could shake upon her seven hills the harlot of Rome as she never had been shaken before, because he was mighty with God in prayer! Oh, that I could but stir up my Brothers and Sisters to be instant in season and out of season, if there is such a thing as out of season with God in prayer! Let us get away to our closets! Let us cry mightily to Him! Let us come to close quarters with Him and say, “Will You not revive us again that Your people may rejoice in You?

When is it a good time to pray a prayer like this? I pray this often when I remember any gracious act of God in my past.

Here are some verses in Isaiah chapter 31 that were turned into hymns of prayer.

Just as a bird hovers over its nest to protect its young, so I, the Lord Almighty, will protect Jerusalem and defend it. – Isaiah 31:5 – Grant Peace, We Pray, in Mercy, Lord

The Lord said to me, “No matter how shepherds yell and shout, they can’t scare away a lion from an animal that it has killed; in the same way, there is nothing that can keep me, the Lord Almighty, from protecting Mount Zion.  – Isaiah 31:4 – Zion Stands with Hills Surrounded

Their emperor will run away in terror, and the officers will be so frightened that they will abandon their battle flags.” The Lord has spoken—the Lord who is worshiped in Jerusalem and whose fire burns there for sacrifices. – Isaiah 31:9 – Captain of Israel’s host, and Guide  and Over the River

How about this prayer of worship.

I turned around to see who was talking to me, and I saw seven gold lampstands, and among them there was what looked like a human being, wearing a robe that reached to his feet, and a gold band around his chest.  His hair was white as wool, or as snow, and his eyes blazed like fire; his feet shone like brass that has been refined and polished, and his voice sounded like a roaring waterfall. He held seven stars in his right hand, and a sharp two-edged sword came out of his mouth. His face was as bright as the midday sun. When I saw him, I fell down at his feet like a dead man. He placed his right hand on me and said, “Don’t be afraid! I am the first and the last. I am the living one! I was dead, but now I am alive forever and ever. I have authority over death and the world of the dead. – Revelation 1:12-18 GNT

I am reminded that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and it feels like my greatest need is to keep stirring up a combination of God’s greatness and a deep reminder of His grace. That is why praying over scripture helps me see God’s character and His works.

” This is the just temperature of a state of spiritual health, – namely, when our
light of the knowledge of the glory of God in Christ does answer the means of it which we enjoy, and when our affections unto Christ do hold proportion unto that light; and this according unto the various degrees of it, – for some have more, and some have less.” – Owen