What Is This Revival We’re Looking For?

I was in this huge building, a very old one with many levels
as well as many facets. One level opened up in the middle of the city center
(an old city) and was confluent with the city. I felt like I had stepped back
in time—even centuries ago, and time stood still. I could not distinguish the
building (a grand church, huge, sprawling, influential and very old) from
the city on the building’s ground level. They were one and the same. I knew
when I stepped from the building into the city yet they were all the same
building structure, one running into the other.

A couple levels below the ground there was a religious
service going on. Though it was in this large sprawling Catholic-style building
structure, the service was not typically Catholic. I could hear it; the people
were singing. A large group had gathered and I could hear what was happening.
Revival was breaking out. Underground! This revival was not out in the city
square or someplace visible, it was underground and invisible. It was happening
on the lowest level of this building.

A powerful presence of God was emanating from the room. I
was drawn like a magnet to the meeting; I desperately wanted to get in there.
However I was still in my pajamas and couldn’t find my makeup bag. I kept
looking for the bag. I couldn’t go into the meeting until I had my makeup on. I
remember feeling frantic over finding that bag. The harder I looked, the more
elusive finding the bag seemed. I desperately wanted to go into that meeting
but wouldn’t go in until I had my makeup on. I didn’t find the bag. I was
beside myself. It didn’t dawn on me I didn’t have to put my makeup on. Then I
woke up.

I believe that this dream has some real directional
application to our understanding of as well as our longing and desire for
revival in this hour. There was a lot to the dream but here are a few nuggets.

First, the city and the church were indistinguishable. They
were not evil in the dream but neither were they filled with God’s glory. They
were empty and neutral, just stone structures, one blending into the other. I
believe there is a way that we have come into such a cohabitation with the
culture that we are blind to the distinctions, not recognizing how acculturated
we have become, as well as being blind to the territorial strongholds. We are
bereft of a level of discernment that will destroy us in the days ahead. We
cannot distinguish the church from culture and vice versa. We are blind to the
power behind the structure. We don’t see it.

Yet there was nothing of God’s glory there, it is godless.
We are not of this nation. We are of another kingdom that has no identification
or membership in our national culture or nation. We are in but not of this
world.

There was no distinction between the religious structure and
the city. Both were godless, absent of God’s glory. As revival breaks out, we
must be more sensitive to the demonic structure operating in the territory. If
we are not, what erupts full of God one day can go down in ruins the next day
because we have failed to fully see what we are up against. We have failed to
see that the city and religious structure are in unity with each other; both
will oppose us.

Second, God was breaking out in the midst of a religious
structure and city in an unprecedented way. However it was in a hidden place.
It was not in a visible street level structure; it was hidden from most people.
I had to go down to the lowest level to get to the meeting. This revival was
happening underground.

Something that is underground is hidden, concealed, covert.
The underground church in China has been the hidden church. It is vibrant,
alive and advancing but hidden to the general public and government. It isn’t
visible.

There is something deeply significant of spiritual life,
vibrancy and revival that begins in hidden parts and places. I believe this
speaks both about individuals and corporate bodies, churches and gathering
places where God is breaking out in a reviving power. What is starting to
unfold must first start with hungry, humble, desperate people who have no
agenda other than to know God and be known by Him. They aren’t seeking to be
seen in any way as famous or become a famous revival center but are singularly
desperate for God. A simple people, seeking a simple yet holy God, who above
all else wants His heart to be their heart and vice versa.

To go down is also to become humble. I couldn’t get in on this
meeting unless I was willing to go all the way down, underground where nothing
and no one is obvious. The meeting was not visible at the street level to the
general public. It was something going on in the depths. It started from the
lowest part of this building, the heart of the building. God is working at the
root level.

Also in the meeting, nobody was identifiable. There was not
an obvious leader. No one stood out in the gathering.

There is a revival God is initiating at the deepest level
but it is not yet obvious, not yet brought to public view. Because it is at the
bottom level, it will eventually shake up, shift, change and transform
everything above it. It is at the foundational level and will shift everything
that sits above it. Again, it’s dealing with roots, foundations, the starting
point, Ground Zero.

I kept hearing, “This thing God is bringing that we
call ‘revival’ is not what we think it is.” It is not just the miraculous
and supernatural; this revival that God is birthing will be a place where the
awe and fear of God saturates the atmosphere like a cloud. To those who are of
a pure heart, it will not be fearful even though the fear of God permeates it.
Joy will erupt. All of us must come to a new level of purity of heart. We will
know it when we see it—it is far more than miracles, although miracles will be
an outcome.

I also believe that what God is initiating has to start at
the lowest level in our hearts. I find in myself this desperation, this sense
that something is not right, but I don’t know what it is; this longing to know
God in a deeper way than I ever have and to be known by Him, this
dissatisfaction with my current spiritual status. It isn’t that I am immoral;
there is this vague indefinable something that has lost the clarity, the
crispness of oneness with Jesus. I am totally His, and He is mine.

Oh, I know God in one sense, I am seeing God break out, I am
seeing miracles take place—don’t’ get me wrong. But there is this general dis-ease
within me that God is after something deeper in me and in us. I don’t feel
condemned, I feel desperate. I am coming to the place where I sense some state
of compromise, of coming into agreement with so much—not just in the church but
in me—that is not really born of God but is not outright evil; just cultural
stuff that has snuck its way in.

I felt part of the dream was saying, “Stay low and
break out at that ‘bottom'”—the core, the deepest place first, at the core
or root level. Jesus came out of the root, the stem of Jesse.

I could have gone into the meeting just as I was. But I had
my pajamas on. I didn’t have the right clothes on—daytime clothes. I felt I
needed different clothes. (Clothes speak to identity and positioning.)

No one told me I couldn’t wear pajamas or had to put on
makeup. Yet I would not go in until I changed clothes and put my makeup on.
Having to have my face made up was the main thing that kept me out of the
meeting. It didn’t keep me from going to that level, but it kept me from
entering the room.

I wouldn’t think of going into that meeting without makeup.
Going into the meeting required a certain appearance in my mind. It didn’t dawn
on me that I could go in, makeup or not. I didn’t think about being
embarrassed. Being made-up had become so automatic, expected, that it didn’t
register that it was keeping me out of the meeting. In my mind, getting my
makeup on first was essential. (For a man, it might be shaving.) I could no
longer discern what was the most critical thing. My conviction about how I
should look superseded the urgency of the draw into that meeting.

“The heart is deceitful above all things,
and desperately wicked; who can know it? I, the LORD, search the heart, I
test the mind, even to give every man according to his ways, according to the
fruit of his doings” (Jer. 17:9-10).

This Scripture seems particularly pertinent, not in a
condemning way but in an instructive way. There are urgent and particular
things God is after in this hour. Where we see Him, His glory breaking out and
feel the draw, don’t let anything stop us. Don’t let our appearance,
positioning (or lack of it) affect us.

Let God get down to the hidden things in our heart, hidden
even from us. And above all, don’t look for the obvious and public, look for
what He is doing in the deepest and hidden places. He is starting at Ground
Zero. God is doing something powerful that will shift entire personal and
corporate structures, positioning them to overtake the entire structure
eventually with His glory. Don’t be afraid to go underground.

Most of all, cry out; don’t fear desperation. It’s your
ticket to get in His hidden room for an outpouring of His glory, for revival.

About the author:·Barbara J. Yoder is the founder and senior pastor of Shekinah Christian Church (shekinahchurch.org)
in Ann Arbor, Mich., and is known for her apostolic and prophetic
breakthrough ministry. She travels nationally and internationally
ministering in churches, conferences and seminars. She is the author of
several books, including Taking on Goliath. To order a copy of the book, click here. Visit her blog page at barbarayoderblog.com.