The Revival Squad
Do you ever feel like you are not enough? Well, contrary to empowering Instagram posts everywhere, those feelings of inadequacy are correct. You are not enough. There, I said it. We fall short of being enough every single day of our lives. Fortunately, God knows this. And we have a whole team of heavenly support in our corner, ready to revive us.
I am currently in the middle of a Precept’s Study on the book of Romans and reading through this book is nothing short of a roller coaster. Paul’s epistle serves us all of the “mountains” that salvation offers, contrasted with the “valleys” of a life away from Christ. As you move from one chapter to the next, the challenges and revivals that Paul faces all still exist today. NOTHING has changed. In 2,000 years, believers and non-believers still face the same questions and the same answers. One of the most significant activities in our study was our work on Chapter 8, where we examined the individual characteristics of the Trinity. We can pop off adjectives like “sovereign” and “omniscient” to describe God, but carving out time to fully understand the Trinity’s attributes is both eye-opening and fulfilling.
In keeping with our theme of revival challenges, I invite you to complete the same exercise. Full disclosure…I can take no credit for creating this amazing experience. This is straight out of Precept Ministries’ Romans study. To start, pull out your Bible and open to Romans 8. If you’d like, read though Chapters 6-8 to understand more of the context, or even the whole book. Grab a piece of paper and draw three columns; label them God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit. Now reread Chapter 8, pausing as you go to record characteristics that describe each person of the Godhead. You’ll quickly realize you are describing who each person is, but more significantly, what each person does. How each person works. How each person works for us. This is our God. The 3-in-1 MVP, at that. Our defense and our offense. He is always working to revive us from our human condition. He is everything we need to revive our hearts. Things like self-help books, therapy, and medicine can all play their parts in supporting our revival, but nothing compares to the power of our God.
Now, we’ve all been lost and experienced those times where you don’t know what is wrong or how to ask for help. For me, the most enlightening items in my lists came from verse 26 (NIV): “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.” The Holy Spirit is constantly working to revive us even when we do not know how to revive ourselves…even putting into words what we cannot articulate to God. The Spirit dwells within us, knows our every need, and intercedes when our human condition falls short. Even when we cannot help ourselves, He is there. The clutch player who always hits the half-court buzzer beater. The home run in the ninth inning. The Hail Mary pass in the 4th quarter. He wins it all.
Feeling in need of a little revival?? Girl, wash your face…open your Bible and turn to God.
Catherine (Cat) Garner was born in Long Beach, California and moved to Nevada when she was 10. She grew up in the Las Vegas community, then earned her BA in English and Political Science from the University of Nevada, Reno and her teaching credential from UNLV. She is a National Board Certified Teacher who has taught, coached, mentored, #allthethings in public schools for over a decade. She also walks in a variety of school-related roles outside the classroom such as writing curriculum and teaching professional development classes. Her husband, Ryan, is a CPA and they have one son, Jack, and a fur-daughter, Emma. She loves worship music, shoes, a good book, Precepts Bible studies, soccer, making silly TikToks, Sally Clarkson, house plants, and yoga.