Do We Want a Political Requiem or a Spiritual Revolution?

The moorings of political rhetoric in America have given way to the vitriol of a lost and straying generation.

We seem to have lost both the security of foundational principles and the sails of fundamental disciplines to keep us from crashing upon some distant shoal. Are we witnessing the political requiem for biblical Christianity in America?

Could it be that the bewildering season of great compromise and chaos upon American landscape is increasingly becoming the platform for her greatest awakening?

Principle #1: What is perceived to be a requiem, a ceremony of death, for one is a promised revolution for another. An awakening of the Spirit that produces the fire of revival and the fruit of His holiness is indeed revolutionary within culture.

Rather than mourn over the youngest generations, let’s dance with them in the light of Jesus’ revelation. We must foster the hope of Jesus in these generations and watch as they become great agents of awakening.

There are many who proclaim that liberty’s dream and America’s destiny lie abandoned and broken upon shoals of hopelessness, but what if our collective cultural dirge is about to become our song of deliverance?

The psalmody of our history has become the acidity of our times, and it is time to dream again. What if the Lord is birthing a new pioneering generation who, with subjugated hearts and courageous lives, will carry the gospel of Jesus to the ends of the earth?

There is a brilliant young pioneering generation among us, and I saw them in a dream recently as I had never seen them before. In the dream, I walked into a sanctuary of a church with a great friend of mine. As we stepped from the foyer into the large and spacious room, I noticed the wallpaper was literally peeling off the walls. I pointed out the peeling paper to the pastor, and he told me they were getting ready to remodel, and all the paper was to be removed. I quickly responded, “Why don’t we just remove it all now?”

Principle #2: The future is often hidden behind a thinly veiled history. Students of history are remarkably amazed by the revelations of the future discovered there. We must not assign as destiny to the next generation the frustrations and failures of those who have gone before them, ourselves included. We must inspire the youngest generations to dream.

We began tearing the wallpaper off the wall at the front corner of the room just off the right side of the platform.

 As we peeled back the paper, we immediately noticed a beautiful wall mural painted beneath it. The first section of the paper removed began to reveal a marvelous painting of a young man standing stoically at the edge of a mountain cliff. He stared forward with a stern face, and interestingly, pieces of an ancient suit of armor lay at his feet.

The image was drawing me in, and I became alarmed at the intentions of the young man as I interpreted what I was seeing. What is he doing so near the cliff’s edge? Why is armor lying at his feet? What are his intentions? What is he thinking? In the dream, it was as though I formulated the opinion that the young man was about to leap off the cliff. It seemed he had laid his armor neatly at his feet and was simply done. My heart was flooded with the emotions of his foreboding stare and his stance of at the cliff’s edge.

Principle #3: The future is bleakest to those who mistaken the dysfunction of the previous generation with the destiny of their own. In the dream, I could not have more misinterpreted what lay before the young man on the cliff’s edge. As we live in this unprecedented time in American history, we must discipline ourselves to dream big dreams of the generations who will come after us.

I encouraged the pastor I was with in this dream to begin to pull more of the dry and brittle wallpaper off the wall that we might see what lay before him. As we did, we noticed along the entire length of the wall that the young man on the cliff’s edge was looking over the most beautiful and amazing lowland area I had ever seen. It was lush, with an abundance of vegetation, and a river flowing through it. It was teeming with life and an abundance of fruit.

In the dream, we continued to tear more and more of the wallpaper off the wall. Beyond the lush and amazing valley, we unveiled incredible mountain ranges ascending toward the heavens.

The mountains were snow-peaked and provided a beautiful backdrop to the lush valley that lay before it. We continued to peel more paper off the wall. Beyond the mountain range lay a remarkable desert that extended all the way, in the dream, around the room until it began to bring us back to the young man on the cliff’s edge. When we first saw the desert, we noticed what looked like a trail of people who were walking through a beautiful, but very dry and remote place.

As we uncovered the mural, the small line of people continued to increase in numbers until by the time we reached the young man on the cliff’s edge, the walls were completely covered with many generations, walking in unison out of the desert.

Suddenly, my heart was able to see the amazing picture that lay before me. The young man was neither despondent or depressed. The stoic look on his face was not at all a look of failure and frustration, but rather, he was at the head of a marching throng of people coming out of a desert place. He was scouting over the cliff’s edge to evaluate the safest passage into the wonderful valley that lay before them.

Principle #4: The Lord mantles generations and anoints them with His Holy Spirit to accomplish the dream He places within them. I asked in the dream, “Who is this young man?” Then the answer came, “He is not a man. He is a generation.”

The Lord is raising up a generation of young pioneers who will rise to the challenge and expand the Kingdom through courageous acts of faith and the spiritual discipline to see the dreams of the Father come to reality in their generation.

The Lord is raising up a generation of young people who will do exploits in their generation the likes of which we have not dreamed. The moorings that have been lost in this nation and the vitriol of a new cultural norm is the fruit of seed sown before them, and for which they cannot be held responsible. Let’s not forget the major revivals and awakenings that have been born in the hearts of the youth. It will be so again. Awakening is coming to America, and watch with anticipation for powerful moves of the Spirit among the youngest generations among us.

Principle #5: Watch for a mighty revival to break out in the youth in 2017. In the coming year, the world will celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. This generation will be provoked to dream again and see past the thinly veiled movements of history. They will begin to arise and take their place in history. We are witnessing very encouraging signs of a significant and sustainable revival among the youth in many places across the country. We are beginning to witness the synergy of generations that is absolutely necessary to see the nations shift into sustainable awakening and transforming revival.

Where is the leadership compelled by vision for America’s future that is truly worthy of her good past? Where are the champions of mercy and the heralds of brotherly love? Where are those who will lay down their lives to bring us together and stand for a cause greater than themselves? They are among us, and they are awakening to America’s greatest hope. {eoa}