Rally Your power and come to save us.
Restore us, God; look on us with favor, and we will be saved.
Let Your hand be with the man at Your right hand,
with the son of man You have made strong for Yourself.
Then we will not turn away from You;
revive us, and we will call on Your name.
Restore us, Yahweh, the God of Hosts;
look on us with favor, and we will be saved.
Psalm 80:2b-3, 17-19
All week long we have all looked at a number of verses together that support the vital truth that God is for us; He is with us; He fights for us - the battle belongs to Him! This is true in every avenue of our lives! It is a truth that needs to be rehearsed daily!!!
Today let’s look at one of Asaph’s psalms. In this passionate poem, Asaph reminds God of what He established and reminds Him that what He has established needs to be revived. “Return, God of Hosts. Look down from heaven and see; take care of this vine, the root Your right hand has planted, the shoot that You made strong for Yourself.” (Psalm 80:14-15) Four times he calls out to God for restoration. (Psalm 80:3, 7, 14, 19) The Hebrew word that Asaph uses here is shuwb. It means to repent, return, restore, refresh and repair. Aspah asks God to fix what is broken.
We live in a broken world. We experience loss and grief and despair brought on by the ugliness of sin. Even when we haven’t sinned in a situation per se, we can still be wounded...deeply. We need God to “show up.” Oh, make no mistake, He’s been there all along (just as you have seen in the family/player blogs all week) but our soul’s need to be reawakened in order to see Him here with us, to receive the restoration He longs to give us.
We embarked on this journey of discovering God “showing up” even when situations seemed insurmountable. Now let’s focus our attention on that need for restoration and revival. We need to wake up! Our sons (and daughters) need to wake up! We need to see God’s glory displayed in our lives. The world around us needs that as well.
As we enter a new week I’d like to encourage you to do a few things. First, look at your own need. What are the broken things in your own life that need to be repaired? What sin is keeping you from God? From your kids? And your community? Confess and repent. Then you are ready to pray for others.
Second, ask God to awaken our souls and the souls of everyone connected to the Taylor football community. Pray for revival and restoration! Just as we have seen in the blog posts all week, the battle for our hearts and lives is His to win! We cannot do it ourselves.
Third, submit yourself to the Lord. We can ask for revival all day long but if we are unwilling to submit to His authority in our lives, we are resisting Him and won’t be able to receive the restoring benefits He desires for us to have. Pray that our sons and the entire TUFF community will submit to God’s authority.
Fourth, continue to share the player posts with your sons. Pray that God would awaken a desire for them to receive instruction from Holy Spirit every day.
Thank you for being a partner in the gospel with us.