Don't pray for revival.

Okay, so this is my first blog post ever and I've already fallen prey to the classic article-writing temptation: throw out a controversial title as an attention grabber. I'm guilty, now let's move on. This subject of revival has been on my heart for more than half my life, but my perspective on the subject has changed considerably. This will have to be a multi-post subject because I have to get ready to go to work in half and hour.
My life is surrounded by worship songs. I am a worship team musician, my wife is a worship leader, my kids sing worship songs all day, my truck's radio is permanently fixed on a Christian station. Occasionally I run into songs that make me wrinkle my nose and think. For a time, the theme of "more" was terribly popular in modern worship songwriting. "More love, More Power, More of You, More, More, More..." I do not question the heart or motives of these blessed songwriters, but the worship-participant's perspective can ascribe a different meaning to the song than the songwriter originally intended.
To me, if my mind takes the position of singing "God, give me more," then I am operating on the assumption that God is holding something back. My Bible tells me that "His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness." (2 Peter 1: 2-4) If He has put everything at my disposal, then the onus is really on me if my spiritual life is not what it should be. Perhaps instead of asking God for more love, more blessing, more power, more of His Spirit, I need to ask God for more conviction of sin, more strength to combat the flesh, more spiritual discipline, more trials that produce perseverence, etc.
Pehaps we have a skewed understanding of what revival really looks like. It's very likely that many of us have never seen or experienced real revival. I suspect that most Christians think revival is a predominantly emotional experience with lots of tears and hugging and feel-good moments. Not that this is entirely wrong, I would suggest from my study of great revivals in history that true revival involved the mind and the will more than it employs the emotions. Revival is the product of choices to allow God to root out the sin and faulty thinking in our lives. Spiritual growth will not .....cannot.....be built on a flawed foundation. To the Christian, a proper foundation is a Biblically correct "Worldview." Worldview is what we employ to answer the big questions of life. Worldview determines how we evaluate our world. The Apostle Paul understood Worldview to the be the key element in the life of the believer when he wrote that transformation came from the "renewing of your minds." Not hearts or emotions or behavior......the Mind. If God can get you and I to think like He does, everything else will fall into place.
Of course, this begs the question: "What does that look like?" That is an equally big subject, which will be perfect for my next post. Time to get ready for work.