Prayer For Revival and Faithful Plodding

Mike Leake

One of the coolest features in the town of Jasper, Indiana is the Jasper City Mill. It is a fully functioning water-powered mill. Sometimes our family would go and admire how it worked. A slow addition of water eventually brings it to a tipping point and within a little time it’s flying fast. And when the wheel starts flying fast then it starts grinding corn and making cornmeal. It’s an amazing thing to watch:

I couldn’t help but think about the nature of pastoral ministry while watching this mill. Just like the water mill, it usually takes a ton of small things combining to get the thing moving. And those little drops are hard work in pastoral ministry. It’s praying at bedsides, having tough conversations, walking through the fire of controversial decisions, and preaching faithful sermons week in and week out. Pastoral ministry is filled with a host of seemingly insignificant things.

Sadly, the wheel doesn’t always spin. Sometimes your faithfulness isn’t tangibly rewarded this side of eternity. You don’t get to sell cornmeal in the gift store. But at other times the wheel starts to spin and you’ve got positive momentum. Every pastor longs for the days when the wheel is turning at lightning speed and you’ve got tangible results.

I wonder if this is why we pray so much for revival. Because times of revival aren’t the times of slow plodding. That’s when the wheel is spinning at full speed and you’re just trying to keep up with its produce. What ministry leader wouldn’t want that?

But in my mind our view of revival is a bit like an empty water wheel that just starts spinning by an unseen hand. I wonder if sometimes my prayer for revival is little more than, “Lord, make my job a lot easier”. Am I praying that God would cause the wheel to spin apart from seasons of faithful plodding? Is my prayer for revival just laziness cloaked in spiritual jargon?

It’s always a sovereign work of God when the wheel starts to spin. But it doesn’t mean that God doesn’t tend to use the means of faithful plodders. Revival usually comes one drip at a time. When we pray for revival we ought to be praying that God would see fit to use our little efforts to bring our gospel work to a tipping point and move the wheel. But even if it doesn’t we are going to keep doing the work of ministry, continue pursuing faithfulness, and leave the work to him.

Our prayers of revival shouldn’t be that God would create something out of nothing. Instead let us pray that perhaps this Sunday the water will fill the basket and it’ll finally move the wheel.

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Photo source: here

Pray With Your Spouse: Day Six

Mike Leake

Day Six: The Little Things

There is an evil that I have seen under the sun, and it lies heavy on mankind: a man to whom God gives wealth, possessions, and honor, so that he lacks nothing of all that he desires, yet God does not give him power to enjoy them, but a stranger enjoys them. This is vanity; it is a grievous evil. –Ecclesiastes 6:1-2

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author of Sherlock Holmes, once said, “It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important.” The Bible also speaks of the importance of the little things. Our days are filled with the tedious and mundane. This impacts our marriages. We must take joy in the little things, if not we will be distracted by constantly aspiring for greener pastures and more exciting things. Ecclesiastes 6 tells us that it is a grace to be able to enjoy the mundane of life, but it doesn’t tell us how. Jesus rescues us from the meaninglessness of life under the sun and infuses even the little things with meaning and purpose. Let us pray today that God will give us grace in our marriages and in our lives to enjoy the little things.

Father, we know that it is only through your Son that we are able to enjoy the little things. It is a great evil for us not to enjoy this life that you have given us. You have given us many of the desires of our hearts. We pray that you will also give us the grace to enjoy these things. Capture our hearts with deep delight in the simple things. Open our eyes to the little things in our marriage, and cause our joy to be contagious and point others to Jesus.

A Popular Hymn I’m Not Crazy About

Mike Leake 7 Comments

Alright grab some stones to throw at me. I’m about to tip one of those sacred cows and share an unpopular opinion….

I don’t like Blessed Assurance.

I might have survived that first barrage of stones, but I’m not finished…

Not only do I not particularly like Blessed Assurance, I think it’s a bit dangerous and wouldn’t recommend singing it in church.

As soon as you are through pelting me, hear me out. Have you ever actually thought through the lyrics and compared them to your own walk with Christ? When have you had perfect submission? Ever experienced perfect delight, this side of glory? All is at rest? Really?

This isn’t my story and this isn’t my song. I wouldn’t mind it to be my story or my song. And I certainly wish that I was praising my Savior all the day long. But I’m not and I don’t. And I shouldn’t belt out such lies in church. And so while ya’ll sing this song as if it really is your experience I’m mourning the fact that it really isn’t mine.

Fanny Crosby co-wrote this with Phoebe Palmer who was deeply steeped in Keswick theology and Higher-Christian life teaching. This is why she talks about perfect submission and perfect delight. The theology which undergirds this hymn is a theology which believes that Christians, if they perfectly surrender their flesh really can experience this perfect delight. Dan Phillips outlines the problem with this theology about as well and succinctly as I’ve read:

The effect of all this was that I was constantly taking my spiritual pulse, constantly checking within, freezing up, paralyzed, spiraling down into deeper and deeper morbid introspection and depression.  In the name of “looking to Jesus” (revealed in His Word) I was constantly looking to myself, within myself.  (Phillips, The World-Tilting Gospel, 251-52)

I’ve outlined more on the dangers of Keswick theology. Here, I just want to focus on this particular hymn. Imagine with me that you are in your church on a Sunday morning. You are hungry for more of Christ and you’ve been battling depression for a couple weeks now. (Not hard for me to imagine). As you start singing this hymn what is it calling you to do? What are the implications of the words?

If I’m not in perfect delight and if all is not rest what is the problem according to this hymn? Well, it’s that I’m not in perfect submission. I haven’t surrendered everything to God yet. Now, that’s likely true because I doubt I’ll ever be perfectly surrendered or submitted this side of full redemption. This hymn drives me into myself. It calls me to analyze myself and try to surrender even more and submit even more.

Is this what the Scriptures do, though? Do they drive me to self and say, “surrender more” or do they draw us to Christ? What would this hymn say to Job? What’s your problem, Job? Why aren’t you at rest? Why aren’t you in perfect delight? The hymn would sound a bit like Job’s counselors, wouldn’t it?

And so I don’t really care for this hymn because it forces people to either sing something that isn’t true of their experience or it encourages folks to wish that something was more true of their walk with Christ all the while providing medicine which would prove to be dangerous to their spiritual growth. I’d rather sing something like Andrew Peterson’s The Silence of God. This fits what I see in the Scriptures (and my own experience) a bit more:


This provides me more comfort and assurance than Blessed Assurance ever has. This drives me to a suffering Savior who has also experienced the silence of heaven. This causes me to look outside of myself and rest in Christ. Here I find rest. Here I find answers even in silence. Here I do like Job and cover my mouth, repent in dust and ashes, and weep for the ache. But it’s here that I start to see the sun shine and hope come in the morning. Because I know Christ has conquered—and this even though my submission stinks at times.

Don’t misunderstand. We need songs which talk about joy in Christ and the happiness of heaven. To only sing songs like The Silence of God would leave us ignorant of a whole side of the Christian life which is also very true of our experience with the Lord. There are times when the Lord plays the flute and we dance. But sometimes he plays a dirge and it isn’t because I’m not perfectly submitted.

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Photo source: here

Pray With Your spouse: Day Five

Mike Leake

Day Five: Not Becoming Weary

And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. –Galatians 6:9

To grow weary of something doesn’t just mean that you need a minor break. It means giving up, completely. This isn’t about getting tired it’s about being discouraged and losing hope. You’ve likely heard the phrase, “No good deed goes unpunished”. There is some truth to it. We live in a fallen world, so things aren’t as they ought to be. And we live as finite and sinful human beings. Add all this together and it means that we have to fight against growing weary.

Sadly, in marriage we can even grow weary in doing good to one another. But we must not give up. We are called to fight for joy in our marriage. And we are called to fight for joy in serving God—in whatever capacity He calls us. If you feel like giving up be encouraged by the words of 2 Corinthians 4:16-18. Viewing life through the lens of eternity is balm for our weary souls. Feasting on what Jesus has already accomplished and already purchased helps us persevere and not give up.

Father, there are times when we feel like giving up on doing good. Rescue us from weariness. We need your strength to persevere. Help us to passionately pursue doing good to one another, regardless the response. Give us a vision of the eternal which helps us to keep pressing on. You never grow weary of doing good, and in this we rest.