It's over! The elections, I mean. For some there's a sigh of relief. Some are jubilant, while others are despondent. That happens after every election. But there's something different about this particular election. Now so much because of the candidates or even the results. It's different because God has been doing something behind the scenes.
God has been energizing and mobilizing a movement of prayer in the Church in the United States. After crisscrossing the nation multiple times during the past few months, I would say that we have seen the greatest number of Christians praying... perhaps more than ever in America's history. Oh, we've still got a long way to go toward becoming a praying Church, but we have taken a significant step.
Across the nation I heard Christians praying for God to step into this situation. The Body of Christ came together across denominational lines to humble itself before the Lord and repent. A cry for revival within the Church arose across the land. We began to recognize that the problem isn't the White House, but our house.
It's over... or is it? Not the elections, but the re-energized movement of prayer. (The days following Election Day might well be more crucial than Election Day itself.) Now we must decide whether or not we will continue to seek God's face on behalf of our nation. It is now, after the heat of the political process has died down, that we see if the Church will allow the fire of the Spirit of God to still empower our prayers.
The Lord made it very clear to me last summer that this call to prayer for the elections was, in fact, not about the elections. Our national elections were simply the occasion that the Lord used to stir us to prayer. Now come the test of our hearts. Will we still passionately seek the Lord in prayer? Will churches still come together to pray? Will we slip back into a "we can do it" mentality, or have we learned to depend upon God in every way through prayer?
I encourage every believer to keep praying. I encourage every pastor to rally your church toward deeper levels of prayer... for revival and for our nation. Don't sit back now! ... May God bless our churches and nation in the midst of this prayer movement He has raised up!
