The Road to Revival

You’ve heard, “Be careful what you ask for,” right? Recently, I cried out to God for revival, and He took my heart on an unexpected road trip. 

I’ve been asking God to help me get up early—so, of course, I started my period one morning at 5 a.m. I got up to handle the “situation,” then laid back down and considered what to do: “Should I get up? Maybe I’ll get up when my alarm goes off at 6? Or maybe 6:30?” I felt a tug from the Holy Spirit and prayed, “God, help me know what to do.”

I lay there a while longer, and then the song “Holy Spirit”¹ started running through my head, but it was all out of order. As it played in my mind, the Spirit wrecked me:

“Holy Spirit, You are welcome here

Come flood this place, and fill the atmosphere.

Your glory, God, is what our hearts long for,

to be overcome by Your presence, Lord.”

Oh, God! Does my heart long for your glory? Do I long to be overcome by your presence?

“There’s nothing worth more,

that could ever come close.

No thing can compare;

You’re our living hope.

Your presence, Lord.”

God, am I treating your presence like nothing else compares?

“I’ve tasted and seen

of the sweetest of loves

where my heart becomes free,

and my shame is undone.

Your presence, Lord.”

Lord, I HAVE tasted and seen the sweetest of loves, but I have forgotten the potency of Your true flavor! Oh, God! You have set me free, but I have been sitting in the bondage of bad habits, distractions, and complacency. Forgive me, Lord!

And then, I was on my face. I prayed for new habits. I prayed for renewed fervor. I prayed for strength and guidance. Then, I prayed for my family and my church family. I prayed for revival in our church and our community. At first, I pictured people worshipping with joy and passion, with smiling faces and hands reaching towards heaven. But then, the Holy Spirit showed me a different picture—a picture of me, exactly as I was.

In my heart, I felt like He said, “You want revival? This is how revival starts. It doesn’t begin with victorious shouts and tears of joy. It starts on your face with tears of repentance and the wails of the contrite—the sound of breaking chains.”

ROAD TO REVIVAL: ALLOW HIM TO BREAK YOUR HEART

My heart broke. It broke for me and those like me: the ones who are searching for him regularly, but halfheartedly. We know better, but we’re stuck in a rut of our own pathetic patterns. We know He’s with us, but He still feels so far away.

And what should our response be when we see the error of our ways? King David shows us a good example in Psalm 51:

Open my lips, Lord,

    and my mouth will declare your praise.

You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it;

    you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.

My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit;

    a broken and contrite heart

    you, God, will not despise.

(Psalm 51:15-17 HCSB)

My heart was repentant and my spirit broken, but I knew that couldn’t be all, so I also woke up my husband. He heard my heart and lay on his face with me to repent and ask God to heal us. We thanked the Lord for drawing us near and asked Him how we needed to change.

Asking isn’t the hard part, though—it’s allowing Him to make the change.

ROAD TO REVIVAL: ALLOW HIM TO MAKE THE CHANGE

I’ve been reading through Jeremiah in my Bible plan recently. In the past, I’ve sped-read through it: Ugh. The weeping prophet. “Woe to everyone,” and such. But that day, I saw the beauty of God’s nature in His impending wrath and His subsequent compassion.

His heart is FOR His people: the ones who will be broken in spirit for His righteousness. He will keep His eye on them and return them. He will pour out His mercy and grace.

His heart is rightly enraged by the leaders who draw His people into darkness, spiritual and physical adultery, and complacency. His wrath burns against those who say in their pride, “God won’t touch me!” and who lead others astray.

Jeremiah 23:20 says this:

The Lord’s anger will not turn back

   UNTIL He has completely fulfilled the purposes of His Heart.

In time to come you will understand it clearly (HCSB, emphasis mine).

Next to this verse, I now have a note in my Bible that says, “The Lord’s wrath and anger comes with purpose. It is righteous; it cleanses and purifies.” God is not a power-hungry tyrant who punishes all who dare step out of line. He is a loving Father, who disciplines—and even punishes, when necessary—with tears flowing from His eyes. He disciplines to renew the hearts of His children and to remove the impurities, distractions, idols, and bad influences from their lives.

Receiving God’s discipline means allowing Him to make changes. Many people would say that to repent means to “turn around,” but I’d like to amend that a little. I’ve tried to turn around and make changes on my own; it hasn’t gone well. “I’ll be good this time!” I say, like a two year old salivating while staring hard at the cookie jar. I want to be good on my own. Newsflash: if we could be good on our own, we wouldn’t need Jesus. But we do—desperately. So instead, I suggest we try surrendering to the Lord and allowing Him to change us from the inside out. That means allowing Him to change our hearts about our habits, not just trying to white-knuckle our way through behavior modification.

For me, He wants to change my heart towards my time with Him and the way I’m using my most loved and hated tool: my phone. Notifications, social media, games, and even necessary ministry communication often distract me from immersing myself in the Lord’s presence. I read my Bible; I pray; I do my Bible Study. Check; check; check. I want Him close…but that little beeping brick just begs me to pick it up.

Have you ever hung out with a friend (or spouse) who constantly looked at their phone? You’re out at a restaurant having dinner or chatting over coffee and they’re physically there, but not all the way? They’re listening to you and talking but obviously preoccupied.

Sadly, that’s the way I’ve been treating God. Isn’t that a sad picture? My Creator, the Author of all existence, wants me to draw close to Him—to focus on Him and spend meaningful quality time with Him—and I’m allowing myself to be distracted by a device. I can’t imagine how sad that makes Him, and yet, He still wants me. And He wants you, too.

ROAD TO REVIVAL: ALLOW HIM TO CARRY YOU HOME

Friend, I don’t know where you are right now spiritually. Maybe you’re far from God, angry at Him, or ashamed. He wants you.

Maybe, like me, you haven’t wandered that far, but far enough to know better. Maybe your time with Him is looking a little compulsory—like checking off a box before moving on to the next—instead of an intimate, loving, passionate relationship with the Creator of the universe and the Savior of your soul. He wants you.

Maybe, everything I’m saying is foreign. You don’t know this God: not the Father, nor the Son, nor His Spirit. You don’t know what any of this means…but you think you might want to. Oh, sweet friend, He wants you. He wants you to know His tender love and mercy and, yes, even His discipline and death to yourself and your desires because, in that, is the sweetest peace, joy, and hope you’ve never known—but you can.

Maybe, you feel too dirty—too far gone, too covered in the muck of your own sin and depravity, lost in your mistakes. I’ve got news for you: we all are (or were), and He wants you.

“None is righteous; no, not one,” (Romans 3:10)—not on our own. But the “weeping prophet,” Jeremiah, gave us another wonderful word around 600 years before Jesus would come to fulfill it:

“The days are coming—this is the Lord’s declaration—

when I will raise up a Righteous Branch of David

He will reign wisely as king and administer justice

   and righteousness in the land.

In His days Judah will be saved,

and Israel will always dwell securely.

This is what He will be named:

Yahweh Our Righteousness.”

(Jeremiah 23:5-6, HCSB)

On our own, we’re all doomed—so Jesus came and lived and died and rose again. He became our righteousness. Yahweh Tsidkenu: Yahweh Our Righteousness.

The bottom line is He wants you. He wants me. He wants us all. He desires our hearts, fully and completely, but you’re not on your own. If you're willing to let Him, He’ll carry you home to His heart. He’s the Good Shepherd after all, and the Good Shepherd carries home his precious, lost lambs.

ROAD TO REVIVAL: ALLOW HIM TO RESTORE YOUR JOY

Right now, my heart is full of abundant joy, peace, and hope. I feel full-up, like my soul has feasted on a hundred Thanksgiving dinners all at once. But instead of feeling bloated, like I’m near a tryptophan-induced coma, my soul feels alive and awake—recharged. And sister, it feels GOOD.

My heart yearns for us all to experience this revival. Our churches need it. Our whole world needs it. We know this deep in our hearts. As it turns out, that starts with me and you, on our faces before the Lord, renewing our commitment to and our fervor for Him.

When we do that—when the joy of the Lord is our strength—we will take that joy and strength to our families and churches and workplaces. It will ignite a consuming fire of renewed passion and bring a cleansing flood of breakthrough from Yahweh Perazim, “Yahweh Breaks Through” (a name based off of 2 Samuel 5:20, but that’s a story for another day).

Only our God could be a consuming fire and a cleansing flood at the same time.

Join me here, friend—in the midst of the fire and the waves of the flood. Let Him burn, let Him flow, through all the deepest places in your heart. It sounds perilous, but I promise, He’ll carry you through.

“When you pass through the waters,

   I will be with you,

and through the rivers,

   they will not overwhelm you;

when you walk through the fire

   you shall not be burned,

nor will the flames consume you.”

Isaiah 43:2

The Spirit will burn away your sins and the flood of His righteousness will cleanse your hurting soul. You will rest in the peace of His arms and the joy of His presence.

And that, my friends is revival:

1. Allowing Him to reveal your deep need for Him, breaking your heart for what breaks His

2. Allowing Him to change you from the inside out

3. Allowing Him to carry your heart back home to Him

4. Allowing Him to restore your joy

In other words, the road to revival is surrender. Our flesh and the devious whispers of the enemy make it a harder road than it should be; it’s bumpy, and the persistent pull of our own stubbornness makes it more of a meandering muddle than a neat u-turn. However, I can assure you, the destination is more than worth the tension and turmoil of the long ride.

Let’s take a road trip with the Lord all the way to revival, and let’s bring as many as we can along!

¹“Holy Spirit” was originally written by Bryan and Katie Torwalt and performed by Jesus Culture, but the version I hear in my head is by Francesca Battistelli

*A Note from The Pretty & Wise Collective:

Alissa has become a fast friend to our team! We met at Jesus Camp 2025 in Yale, VA and immediately felt there was a connection the Lord was orchestrating between us. We've spent more time getting to know her, hearing her heart for Jesus and ministry, and have become huge fans! Please go check out her and her husband's ministry Seeking the Symphony Ministries and get involved in what God is doing!

Alissa Coburn and her husband, Josiah, live in Virginia and have seven children, ranging from ages 27 to 7, as well as two wonderful sons-in-law and two beautiful granddaughters (and another on the way!). They are the founders of Seeking the Symphony Ministries: a ministry dedicated to helping couples know the truth of their identities in Christ, how they can walk powerfully in purpose together, and how they can help others do the same thing. Alissa’s passions are Jesus, loving her people, homeschooling her kids, speaking, and writing, but she also loves reading, chatting over coffee, hand-lettering, crocheting, and many other crafty things she’s hobby-hopped her way into.