We don’t need a revival.

Over the holidays whilst I’ve been happily painting my little metal men, my wife has been reading me excerpts from Killing Fields, Living Fields.

It is a fascinating, if somewhat disturbing book about the situation in Cambodia under Pol Pot, and how God was active even in the darkest of hours. It’s a book I’m going to have to read sometime, when I – or if I - get time.

But it got me thinking, which is never a good thing, cause my thoughts just go way off on a tangent. But if my memory serves me well, I’ve read a number of biographical type books around the subject of the persecuted church, and they all seem to have one thing in common.

God works well in times of darkness.

It’s almost as if God works best when we Christians don't have the freedom to do what ever we want. During times when Christians have to put there lives on the line.

Put simply, when to be a Christian, it’s all or nothing.

So why is it that the affluent Western church always seems to be crying out for revival, when in reality we should be crying out for persecution? I mean the last thing we need is for the Christian culture to grow, without having a fresh foundation of solid, blood-sweat-and-tears faith for it to stand on.

Of course if I start to cry out to God for persecution to sweep the land, I might not have the luxury to keep on painting my little metal men, or watching DVDs, or even working in my current job.

It’s a dilemma.