Are we in a New Season?

Is God doing something new? I and many others are sensing we are stepping into a new season and it is causing us to evaluate everything we do in light of this. 

Many of us have sought to do our best over the years of our ministry – to be faithful to all God has asked of us – but we’ve been painfully aware that our best doesn’t seem to have been enough. The awareness of such shortcomings may well have caused some to give up, but an increasing number are being compelled to get on our faces before God and cry out ‘God we need you’.

A few years ago, whilst my wife and I were away on a mini-break in West Wales, I suggested we stop off at Moriah Chapel, Lougher – the place credited as the birthplace of the 1904 Welsh revival. We probably should have realised that prior arrangement was essential, but we just turned up and were unfortunately disappointed to find the doors locked. Not wanting to waste the journey we began to pray on the small courtyard in front of the chapel. 

Around 15 minutes later I opened my eyes, turned around and saw that the previously locked main doors were now open. I suspected someone had crept past this ‘odd’ praying couple so I stepped inside and shouted ‘hello’. The anticipated reply didn’t come and I searched the building but found no one. Had God opened the door for us to enter? We took our two-person prayer meeting inside. 

I sat down at the Piano and began to sing ‘Spirit break out’. Nita climbed the steps to the raised pulpit and lay down on her face behind a raised curtain edge.  I don’t know how long we were there – but our hunger for the Lord to manifest His glory once again on our dry and thirsty land had completely captivated us. We touched something of heaven that day and He stirred something fresh in us both. 

It all ended rather abruptly when an elderly lady (who I later found to be the caretaker) arrived to find me worshipping at the piano. ‘Who are you and how did you get in?’ she asked in a rather distressed tone, insisting she had locked the building a few days earlier and no one had opened it. I tried to assure her that the door was open and I was a minister – it seems to calm her but then Nita popped up from behind the pulpit curtain to give her a second surprise. We managed to get her pulse down and eventually she gave us a tour of the building – the place where revival once filled the hearts of those who sat in its pews. I’m still not entirely sure how we got in that day, but I suspect an angel had a spare key. 

Fast forward a few years and I’m still feeling stirred, still praying, still seeking to be faithful – but I’m also witnessing an increasingly large chorus of hearts crying out ‘Lord would you do it again’. Revivals have always been proceeded by such a chorus and it’s getting louder and louder. I believe we are in a new season.