I've been reading some crazy good books lately.
The kind of books that'll rip your face off and change your life.
I love those kinds of books.
There's one story, though, of a man in Scotland that I keep musing over. And I feel like this little snippet in this little chapter just kinda, sorta puts into words the longings of our hearts in the Bender home lately. Not that we're there, but this is the there that we want to be.
The chapter is from a book called Revival Praying, by Leonard Ravenhill (seriously best name ever, right?) And the chapter is titled Deep Calleth Unto Deep. Mr. Ravenhill tells just a bit of the story of a preacher in Scotland, Robert Murray McCheyne.
He tells us how McCheyne was a great scholar, well-versed in Hebrew, Greek and Latin. He also wrote great hymns and painted beautiful pictures, but "Robert Murray McCheyne excelled in a greater art than any of these or all of them combined, for McCheyne is remembered as a man of prayer.... 'How real God is!' he once said to himself. 'God is the only person I can talk to.'"
After McCheyne died and people would visit his church, the reality and impact of this praying man lingered. Visitors at this church are shown to the chair where McCheyne used to sit, told to put their elbows on the table and rest their face in their hands and then instructed "Now let the tears flow. That was the way Mr. McCheyne used to do."
The visitor may next be led to the pulpit where this passionate preacher had stood and again, with elbows on the pulpit and face in hands "Now let the tears flow. That was the way Mr. McCheyne used to do!"
As we've prayed over this city- this hard, broken and dry city- the Holy Spirit has at last brought us to this place where we would cry out, begging Jesus that the tears would flow- that our tears would flow with hearts broken by the mercy and grace of King Jesus. That as Jeremiah wept over Judah and Jesus wept over Jerusalem, we would weep over Denver.
"We are wondering why God does not move; He is wondering why we do not break! We have His exceeding great and precious promises and wonder why He does not oblige; He wonders why we do not obey! We wish He would bend low; He wishes we would break down."
This is the kind of stuff that would change our lives.
Hallelujah Jesus.
