For decades sincere believers have asked, “Why don’t we have revival?” And for decades the answer has always been the same: We don’t have revival because we’re willing to live without it! . . . Sure we want revival. But we don’t need revival. That’s the difference. God will meet us at the point of our need, not our point of preference. Revival is God’s radical measure to get the church in a given area or at a given time back to normal before it falls into spiritual oblivion and cultural irrelevance. Revival comes when we realize that it’s either revival or death, revival or continued backsliding, revival or the world around us goes to hell.7

We’re at the point where we need to pray for God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. That’s the simplest definition of revival you’ll ever find: God putting His will into place for vast numbers of His people. So the prayer we pray for revival may come down to being the simplest prayer one can ever lift heavenward: “Lord, we want Your will to be done in us.” In so saying, you are handing Him the keys, moving out of the driver’s seat, and yielding your will to His. It’s a lordship issue.

But if the pleasures of this world have you in a death grip and will not let go—as in, you could not possibly imagine leaving home on a Tuesday night to perform a deliberate act of Christian ministry because you’d miss your favorite television show—and you cannot honestly pray for God’s will to be done in your life, then there’s another prayer for you. This prayer is the key to the first one. “Father, I cannot say that I want Your will to be done in my life, but I wish I could. Therefore I pray I will have the ‘want to’ to desire Your will to be done. I ask you to change my heart and give me a desire for You alone.”

It is time to seek the Lord. It’s past time.

The time is now.

Catt, Michael. 2010. The Power of Surrender. Nashville, TN: B&H Books.