“Flood the Dry Riverbeds” is a prayer of revival and renewal for our hearts. Without the Holy Spirit, we’re just dry riverbeds trying to water desert land. We need Him who waters thirsty ground, who breathes life into dry bones.
Father,
The world needs You.
The world longs for Your love, joy and peace.
The world thirsts for Your compassion, healing and life.
All of creation, all of humanity groans with the ache of the curse.
The world needs You, Father.
And for some reason, You’ve chosen to use us as conduits, as streams for Yourself.
For Your love, joy and peace.
For Your compassion, healing and life.
But, if we’re honest, we don’t have much to give.
We don’t have much to give because we haven’t really been believing the words You’ve given to guide us.
Because those words don’t lead us to religion.
They lead us to relationship with You—Father, Son and Spirit.
We’ve become religious when we were meant to be relational.
We’ve become calloused when we were meant to be compassionate.
We’ve become greedy when we were meant to be gracious.
We’ve become ungrateful when we were meant to be rejoicing.
We’ve become anxious when we were meant to be joyful.
We’ve become divisive when we were meant to be peaceful.
We’ve become cynical when we were meant to be hopeful.
We’ve become pragmatic when we were meant to be charismatic.
We’ve become apathetic when we were meant to be loving.
We’ve become cold, hard tablets when we were meant to be living, beating hearts.
And it’s all because we don’t really know You.
We don’t really have relationship with You.
We know of You but don’t know You.
We don’t experience the depths of Your love, joy and peace ourselves.
We don’t trust the power of Your compassion, healing and life for us.
Remind us that we need You.
The only difference between us and the world is You.
Without You, we’re no different than the world.
You’ve chosen to reveal Yourself to the world because the world needs You.
And You’ve chosen to reveal Yourself to the world through us.
Remind us that we need You.
Remind us that the world needs You.
Remind us that we can only give You if we ourselves have You.
We can only be streams in the desert if we are connected to You, the Source, the Spring of Living Water.
Otherwise, we become dry river beds.
Father, fill the dry riverbeds of our hearts.
Flood the desert with Your streams once more.
We’ve cut ourselves off from Your heart for far too long.
Father, give us more of Your Living Water, more of Your Holy Spirit.
Because the world doesn’t need us to be religious.
The world doesn’t need us to have all the answers.
The world needs us to be drenched in You.
The world needs You. The world needs us to truly know You.
The world needs Your presence. The world needs us to live and love Your presence.
The world needs the transformative power of compassion that You bring, Holy Spirit. The world needs us to live lives transformed by Your compassionate power, Holy Spirit.
Fill us afresh. Fill us anew.
Let the dry riverbeds overflow.
Fill the desert with life once more.
Come, Holy Spirit.
Come.
Through us even.
Amen.
Take a moment today to read and meditate on John 7v37-39. Are you drinking from the Living Water that Jesus gives? Are you being ongoingly filled with the Spirit as Paul commands in Ephesians 5v18 (the verb tense that Paul uses refers to a continual filling)? Are you actively living in relationship with the Holy Spirit? If not, what’s stopping you? Share it with Your Father in heaven.
Hillsong Worship recently released a new song titled “Fresh Wind.” We can’t stop listening and singing along to it. We lift it up daily as a prayer. We hope you’ll appreciate it as much as we do and maybe even begin to pray with us for a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit in our own lives and the life of American church.
Author:
Hi, I’m Keagan! Some of my friends call me “Keags” though! My wife, Charity, is the C to my K. I am loved by Jesus and am in love with Jesus! I am passionate about others fully knowing and loving Jesus and living life in His unforced rhythms of grace. Read more of my writing here.
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