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The Principles of the Dry Season and the Fullness of Time

Number four on Burns’ list is the Principle of the Dry Season. Look at any spiritual awakening in history, including those that have occurred in our country, and you’ll discover an obvious common thread: Revival is always preceded by spiritual deadness.

It can be the lawlessness in 1800 that preceded the Cane Ridge Awakening or the indifference that defined the mood and times of New York City prior to Jeremiah Lanphier’s first noontime prayer meeting in 1857. To use the analogy of the wave action, the dry season would be the trough, the tide at its lowest ebb. This does not make the dry season any less a part of revival. God is still sovereign, still in charge. The trough is just as much a part of the wave as the whitecap.

Is it possible that the dry season of your church, your community, your nation, may be part of revival? Is it possible that, at some point, we may be coming out of that trough? Burn’s fifth principle, the Principle of Fullness of Time, furthers this idea. As it continues in all its “fullness,” dryness always leads to desperation. Out of their profound sense of dissatisfaction, often with a certain degree of gloom, people begin to cry out to God. We call that prayer.

Remember the earlier story of the Hebrides Islands in the late 1940s? A small group of men meeting in a barn began to cry out, “Oh God, move on your people.” They cried out because there was nowhere else to turn. Their dryness had led to desperation.

The story of the Hebrides is the story of virtually every revival. Out of a remnant, a large-scale movement is born—a movement that encompasses a large area. Strangely enough, the spiritual phenomenon that unfolds is often largely unknown! Regardless of how anonymous God’s hand is, revival occurs in “the fullness of time.” His people, in His time, demonstrate the principle of patience and faith in which the longings of God’s followers are fully expressed.

Has the dry season been allowed to run its course in your life? Imagine the dry season of a nation, in the fullness of time, giving way to desperation. Imagine a remnant in our nation crying out, building momentum, leading a large-scale awakening.