We all love the characters made famous by author A. A. Milne in his book revolving around the 100 Acre Wood and the leader of the pack, Winnie the Pooh. While Pooh can make a great metaphoric parallel to the average American Christian – one who is hungry for spiritual food, but often gets into trouble trying to get it, and makes plenty of mistakes along the way as he matures – we must take notice. Eeyore is always close by.
While the Milne/Winnie the Pooh character of Eeyore is certainly a loveable individual, if his attitude were the prevailing one in the 100 Acre Wood, there’d be a lot more trouble there than they already seem to have.
When faced with hard times, we have a choice. We can look back through history to those before us who have suffered similarly, or even more so than us, and say, “hey, they made it through this, we are going to get through this as well” and work our hardest to make that happen. Or, we can do nothing, sit on our laurels, expecting someone else to foot the bill for our personal financial recovery, languish in self pity and wait for relief or Armageddon, whichever comes first. In short, there is no time for Eeyore mentality when we need to be working toward, and praying for revival.
If we do take the time to look at history, when the world has been faced with crisis, their natural tendency is to turn to God. Some of the hardest and most troubled times in the past have produced great outpourings of the Holy Spirit and the working of God in the form of revival. We recently saw that here in America following the 9/11 terrorist attacks supplanted on an innocent public by Muslims. In the face of such violence and loss, as well as the very real scare of not knowing what might next come from up the sleeves of these terrorists, church attendance rose dramatically all across America. The trouble is, this revival only lasted about as long as the attention span of a kindergartener when the paint ran out and the Play-Doh got hard (who apparently shares a spiritual IQ with the average American).
Names like Luther, Whitfield, John and Charles Wesley, Wilberforce and Newton, and later on Finney, Spurgeon and Moody – all became household names. Why? Not because they recovered the national or local economy, but because they revived the heart of nations.
There are a lot of choices out there for people of “faith.” But Christianity brings with it hope. And not only hope, but a historical pattern of revived hearts and nations because of it, and puts forth into the souls of men a reason to live and an undying hope in the awesome future that lies ahead. History shows that Christian revival brings with it prosperity and a blessing from God. This nation has reveled in that prosperity for more than 200 years. As we look around us, we now see a nation where 75 percent of its people claim Christianity as their faith, but yet we still struggle with whether abortion is right or wrong, whether or not it should be funded with public tax money. The divorce rate is as high in the church as out. Surprisingly, we wonder why it seems like that time of blessing is over.
Jesus said in John 4:35, “Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest!” Such a time is now.
When the woes that encompass our country, or even our own 100 Acre Wood seem to be closing in more tightly than ever – with all due respect, it’s time to tell Eeyore to get with the program because the fields are white for harvest. There is no time for doom and gloom, we must be found at the Lord’s work. We must work as hard at home and on the job to do our part to turn this economy around that has caused so much pain for so many people, while at the same time praying like never before for God to bring revival to the hearts of the people of Bonney Lake, Sumner and all the world. With the populations of our towns, there is no reason why each church in our towns should not be packed to standing room only each and every week.
God tells us that if we turn our eyes to him and lift up our prayers, he will hear us. Forgive us, lord. May God richly bless America once again.
