I am visiting LA this weekend.  A few months ago I was thinking about moving here but I am glad that I didn’t.  I was driving around yesterday and I just felt overwhelmed and trapped.  Everyone is out and about.  It is so crowded.  More than that…this city puts off a vibe/aura.  I think this vibe is everywhere in our country, but more intense in some places.  It says “I don’t need God.”  It might not be active, out loud or spoken, but it is conveyed through action.  It is the undertone.  It is sad and frustrating to be in one of the epicenters for that mentality.  I wish that God would part the sky and tell everyone to STOP and listen to Him and then He would speak and people would hear the truth and would have no way of denying it.  But then I know that human beings, because of our depraved nature, would find a way to deny it.  

I believe our country is in, or on its way to, a desperate state and I believe the main reason is that we have told God, by our actions, that we don’t want or need Him.  We have forsaken God “the fountain of living waters and hewed out cisterns for ourselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.” (jeremiah 2:11)  I know this is not a new thought, but it is something that I have been coming to grips with over the past few weeks. I also know we have not all of the sudden forsaken God.  It has happened over many years and that shows the amazing patience, grace and mercy of God.

I do have hope.  In the midst of the hard times that are coming to this country, I believe revival will happen.  When do we realize our real, desperate need for God?  When we have nothing else to hold on to.  When God strips away all of the things we are depending on that are not Him, we have the choice to come to God in repentance and say “God I have been wrong.  I have lived for myself.  I have been prideful.  I have continually sinned against you.  I am not even worthy to be your slave.”  And then I think about the response of the father in the story of the prodigal son…He told his servants to get the best robe, the family ring, shoes and put them on his son and then prepare a great feast because “this is my son who was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found” (luke 15).