It´s early in the morning.   I´m at my wife´s place of birth in Western Norway.  The summer up here is glorious.  At 11 pm the sun still doesn´t want to go to bed.  It´s a holy part of Norway as far as I´m concerned with all its holy memories of awakenings and I pray,  "Revive Your work!"  (Hab. 3:2).

I try to mingle with the people.  The love of Christ "constrains" me (2 Cor. 5:14).  Deep in my soul I have the feeling, God´s feeling I trust, that He wants that love to be unfolded anew, nay revived, for the eternal good of lost souls.  I can´t revive the awakening days of my youth to which there cleaved many flaws to be atoned for by the blood of Jesus.  However, I may still  today pray with the prophet, "Revive Your work!"

The apathy among us as Christians is appalling.  That however doesn´t prompt me to cry a "woe" on anybody, as that woe is first and foremost addressed to myself.  And yet it´s not a woe of condemnation, but of quiet self judgment.  1 Pet. 4:17.  "It first begins at us", i.e. God´s people, at me. But that "woe" belongs to our lonely prayer closet.

Then I wash my face and go out to meet the people with the love and joy of Christ.  "Do you think I may still dance?" a lady once asked John Hyde ("Paying Hyde") in the Punjab province in India.  He smiled, "I can´t see how you may get to Heaven without dancing!"  And he told her about the joy of forgiveness that could sometimes make you dance for joy.

Despite my sadness the smiling Lord of glory meets me today with  His "Rejoice!" (as some  translations put it in Matth. 28:9).  I meet young people at some dinner table and take that joy with me (not my sadness) and look at their radiant, sometimes laughing faces, where the joy of Christ catches on their countenances.  Indeed, conviction caught on many young lives up here in the past, but the joy of salvation was there too.

May He stir up (revive) our "pure minds by way of remembrance" (2 Pet.3:1) - the remembrance of old time revival!  "Revive Your work!"

July 6, 2013 - jn