Seeking God is like the process a caterpillar goes through to become a butterfly. The caterpillar struggles through the process until the breakthrough. It continues by spreading pollen. Eating the blossoms that gave the pollen. The purpose of the struggle, the whole process does not stop until it's life is over.
What the caterpillar does is natural. He doesn't resist building a cocoon. It is who he is and what he does. It is the process of what he is destined to be. In a sense we are revival just as soon as we commit our lives to Jesus.
There is a natural hunger to know our creator. Yet to find Him and to be transformed to be like Him is a struggle. There are dangers on the way to steal and destroy your chances of revival or sustaining what God has and is doing in our life.
There is a supernatural battle for our soul. There is a full blown battle to stop any godly transformation. Distractions here will sometimes seem more real and more satisfying than the seeking after something we can't see. But if we seek the Lord we are promised we will find Him.
Learning to pray, or communicate with God can be a struggle. There is a powerful character in the Bible. We are told of Daniel because he learned to hang in there. He believed if he continued to pray God would do what He promised. Daniel prayed 21 days - he pushed and struggled thru the battle, all the way through the process.
Jesus told parables (stories to help illustrate His point). In the parable of the lost coin they swept every inch until they found it. The seeking took diligent effort. They did not quite.
It is not that God doesn't think we are good enough. The seeking is necessary for our existence to be with Him to be like Him.
There are signs, indications when we need to step up the seeking. Our worship might lack effort or passion. Prayer may become slack. When we recognize it is time to step up the seeking, we continue on into the transformations He deals with us about.
We need both personal and community transformation. For either and both, it is in the seeking that comes fresh life. We expect the 'revivals' we schedule (a series of services) and plan for them to be blasts of God's presence and miracles. We schedule 'revival' services and then hope they are enough to keep us on fire or to relight the fire. The passion for continuing to seek the fire will always seem to wane. It becomes clear we need the struggle. We might call it perseverance or diligence.
Being transformed from living for this world, to living for heaven is the struggle. The fire that transforms needs to be stoked or re-lite over and over. Even though we see the weakness of relying on the scheduled 'revival' blasts, there is huge evidence without the struggle of those times of seeking revival does seriously wane. Scheduling those times to seek God are crucial in transforming our life here in order to live life here or for there - Heaven.
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