A Spiritual Reboot

Evangelist Billy Sunday said, “They tell me a revival is only temporary; so is a bath, but it does you good.”

Periodically, we need a spiritual reboot. Revival is like the spark that starts the engine. We need God to intervene, and we need to keep fuel on the fire.

Years ago, I was staying at a friend’s cabin, which had no central heating. That meant getting a fire started in the fireplace and then keeping wood on the fire. Everything was going great, except the fireplace was filling up with ash. And the metal bucket for disposing of the ashes was filling up to the top.

A while later, I was sure the embers in the bucket had cooled off. It had been a long time. So I took the bucket outside, where it was very cold and very dark. Then I threw out the ashes. Much to my surprise, a few embers fell out with the ashes. And before I knew it, little fires had started.

Thankfully, I somehow managed to put out all the flames before the fires spread.

In the same way, revival is the spark that starts the fire we keep feeding. Just as I needed to keep fuel on the fire to keep the cabin heated, we need to feed the fire of revival. And we start by refueling ourselves spiritually.

When we’re doing the things we always should be doing as Christians—reading the Bible, having a prayer life, being involved in our church, sharing our faith—it fuels the fire of revival and keeps that fire burning. But we when we neglect those things, we begin to fade.

If you want to see a revival, then do revival-like things. Don’t overly mystify it. Just do the things you know you should be doing as a follower of Jesus Christ.