RUN LIKE A CHAMPION

There’s a special place I visit most days when I’m not traveling. It’s a quiet spot near my home that contains only trees and some large boulders. Often I go there in the mornings to read my Bible and spend quality time with God. When my cares seem as large as those boulders, that little plot of ground is where I lay down my burdens.
I’ve often asked God at that quiet place, “Why do I have to go through this problem, or why am I facing this difficulty?” One morning as I was sitting on one of those boulders and contemplating God’s majesty, nature began to give me some answers. I noticed something interesting about the grass with fresh dew on it. The blades that stood tall and reached toward the sky had no droplets of refreshing water, but the blades that were bent to the ground had several droplets on them.
That grass reminded me that seasons of spiritual refreshing often come when we’re bent and broken. The life that stands tall and arrogant can’t hold the dewdrops of heaven. As soon as those dewdrops encounter a proud heart, they roll off — leaving that soul dry and thirsty. But divine dewdrops rest on the heart that’s bent and broken. The position of brokenness enables us to experience the refreshing waters of life.
The great revivals of Christian history were often preceded by some individual or small group of people who found themselves desperate and broken. Then in one divine moment, there’s a breakthrough from heaven. God comes. The heavens open. And showers of blessings begin to fall. Hearts are refreshed — and set aflame with the love of God.
Burdens turn into blessings. Obstacles become opportunities. Cares vanquish as comfort visits us. And why does all this take place? It’s a simple but profound truth. It was the essence of the manner in which Jesus lived and what He taught. He said, “For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted” (Matthew 23:12). In other words, humble yourself, and God exalts you. Stand proud and tall, and God will abase you.
The humble heart is often birthed through trials and difficulties. We find ourselves broken and needy. And brokenness is the posture of the humble heart. It’s when we’re in that posture that heaven’s rains are poured out, onto a dry and thirsty soul.
Perhaps that’s why the great Welsh revival of the early 1900s took place when one young man cried out, “Bend me, O God. Bend me.” Divine dewdrops landed on his heart. Revival gripped his life. For months, everywhere that young man went, showers of blessings followed. A heart was refreshed. A church was revived. A nation was awakened.
It began with one young man whose heart was positioned to hold the raindrops of heaven. King David once wrote, under the inspiration of God’s Spirit, “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise” (Psalm 51:17). How true that is. If you’re thirsty and stand in need of the showers of God’s blessings, then you must understand they can fall only on the broken heart — the heart that cries out, “Bend me, O God. Bend me.”