What does a common sunflower have to do with Lazarus? This photograph was taken in November 2009, just a few days before Thanksgiving. The harsh winter rains came early that year and most everything else in the garden was rotting. But there, amidst all the decay, arose this glorious flower, looking up towards heaven as its petals unfurled in defiance of death!
Even more glorious was the revival God began in my spiritual walk during this same time. When I took this photograph my life was a mess – I was struggling to overcome chronic pain and financial difficulties, while still wrapped in the grief of being recently widowed. I had somehow become that thorn-infested soil from the Parable of the Sower (Luke 8), the worries and cares of this world were choking me.
My zeal for the Lord was waning and the light that had once shown so brightly in me was fading fast. Spiritually, I felt dead and my life then wasn’t much different than that of someone with no faith at all. In John 11, we learn about Lazarus, he was dead for 4 days when Jesus called him to come out of the grave and rise from the dead, and now Jesus was calling to me, “Come forth!”
But how was such a revival even possible? Like me, the Church at Ephesus in Revelation 2 had lost their first love. Jesus warned them, “Repent and do the deeds you did at first; or else I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place – unless you repent.”
Now there was just one question left – “How do you repent?” Biblical repentance always involves change. One day you find yourself walking away from God and then you make a deliberate choice to turn and walk towards Him. That is repentance – you see the way is wrong and so you go a new way. If you want revival, repentance is the biblical path to take…none other exists that I can see.