The phrase, ‘the twenty who stayed’ keeps scrolling across my memory, those students who loitered in the presence of God at the end of the Asbury University chapel service,  unable to do anything else. One said, she thought it was twenty minutes, but it turned into three hours.  Worship, prayer, songs of deliverance, freedom for those who had locked themselves into a room with Holiness and refused to leave until their hearts reflected the One who was calling them. One time in all of Scripture, we hear the Holy Spirit speak.  In almost the last words of the entire Bible, he shouts, “Come Lord Jesus!” He was calling in love to one who taught us all what love looks like. He was asking for that love to come in ways unmistakable upon the faithful, so that those still in darkness would be see a great unexplainable and glorious light. This happened in that hour!

The twenty who stayed.  They didn’t know why waited, and they didn’t know for how long they would.  They only obeyed, and through their courageous dependence others found out something was going on, something had continued, something weird and out of place, and something that hadn’t happened for over 50 years.  God decided to visit, and himself loiter.  So, the real story is, Jesus Christ, Holy Spirit, and Loving Father decided to stay.  “The Three who stayed’ is the final answer to whatever God will do next. 

Let us join in praying for GenZ, because as Jon Tyson said, who had visited the revival the first week, “This is a revival of GenZ, for GenZ.”  This unique group of younger men and women, who have suffered so much.  This group, that anxiety and depression has marked.  This group, who other generations look at askance for their fragility, this group, God decided to visit, heal and restore to Himself.  In so many ways, God chooses the hardest path, in order to show us all, that indeed He is still God Almighty? 

I ease dropped on the Collegiate Day of Prayer last Thursday night.  I won’t say I participated, because if had one question going into that time, it was, will the older leaders squash the fire in the hearts, silence the voices of the renewed, just plain take over?  For a moment, I thought they would, but then I noticed that no one on stage was named, all anonymous voices.  You could tell a few were from the college, and yes, sages are used by God in times like these, for wisdom and counsel, but are never meant to take charge.  That’s the Spirit’s job, and He has done it so well. 

As one after another student came to bear testimony, there was a holy reverence in the tone and posture of each person.  A common theme, restoration, coming back, finding a place to belong.  This is the medicine of God, upon a generation marked by promiscuity, rebellion, and prodigal anger toward God.  He knows exactly what to put in the spoon, and he is tipping it into thousands who are opening their mouths like little birds to be fed.  Amazing grace, how sweet the sound of chirping newborns in the hands of God. 

Forgive me, because I can’t stop thinking, praying for, and pleading to God that this revival would spread to every city, town and hamlet in the world.  That the holiness birthed in a single chapel on a routine morning, on a cold day in Kentucky, would mark with great humility a generation, like it did 50 years ago.  May the best and brightest, and the worst and deceived, be raised up as the hope for the next generation to lead God’s people, sent to the world, to proclaim the Name above all names. 

Come Lord, Jesus!