“For I will pour water upon Him that is thirsty and floods upon the dry ground. . .”
Isaiah 44:3a
“Do it again, Lord; do it again.”
Those are the words reportedly overheard by an usher in a small Methodist church in London one day as an elderly black man knelt to pray. Supposedly, that was the very spot where General William Booth knelt and prayed one day, crying “Lord, if there’s never been anyone completely sold out to you, let it be me. Let it be me.”
And, sometime later—in July, 1865, the Salvation Army was born.
Oh, dear Pilgrim, is the prayer of Gen. Booth and the old black man your prayer today? Do you yearn to see the Heavenly Father pour out His Spirit like He did on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2:1ff)? Do you “hunger and thirst” for Him to do in your life, your family, your church, our nation and world, etc., what He did that day in “The Valley of Dry Bones” (Ez. 37:1-14)?
Or, perhaps we ought to start higher in our questions:
Do we believe He is a Covenant-keeping God and His Word never fails? Did He really mean what He said in II Chron. 7:14 and Heb. 11:6b? Or, are we prayerless because we are faithless?
God help us all!
His unfailing Promise to Isaiah in today’s Manna is still relevant for today. Judah (His People) had sinned against the Lord. The surrounding nations had sinned against the Lord. The whole earth had sinned against the Lord.
And, Judgment was coming—for God will not allow such blatant idolatry and immorality to go unpunished forever.
That’s the message of the first 39 chapters of Isaiah. And, how we need to hear and heed His warnings in those pages.
But, the last 27 chapters (making Isaiah what some call a “Miniature Bible”) speak of hope and restoration. . .which is what we, His People, need in these last days. Thus, we should engage in “strong crying and tears”—“travailing prayer,” if you will—for that night in Gethsemane our Savior “was heard in that He feared as He offered up prayers and supplications unto Him that was able to save Him from death” (Heb. 5:7).
Are you thirsty, Pilgrim? Does your heart, your inner spirit, resemble a dry, barren wasteland? If so, “Call upon the Name of the Lord” even as Seth and his descendants did (Gen. 5:26). Cry out to him as a frightened child would his parents or a wounded animal would as the bloodthirsty predator draws near.
Our God is not absent or powerless. He is very near (Ps. 46:1). And, He’s just waiting for us to “humble ourselves, passionately pray, seek His Face as never before and repent.” It’s simply a matter of how desperately we long to experience His Reviving.
By Tom Smith Morning Manna Dated February 18, 2010
