What 16th Century Mystics and Crazy Charismatics Have in Common

What do 16th-century mystics and crazy charismatics have in common?

A lot, actually.

And, it’s a topic that I’m quite passionate about! (But that is a bit beyond the scope of this email. Feel free to hit “reply” and ask and I can send you my top 3 reasons why I am passionate about the connections 😂)

I’ve been reading Duncan Campbell’s 1954 account of the Lewis Awakening, or the Hebrides Revival, which many consider to be the last true awakening that we have seen in the West. The stories are wild — services spontaneously lasting until 4am because people are waking up after midnight with a sudden urge to to church, bars full of partygoers suddenly being overcome with the presence of God and repenting, and God’s presence showing up on streets and in places outside of the church.

I should note that Duncan Campbell is not truly a crazy charismatic (he is technically a reformed, Scottish free church minister who draws heavily from the Pentecostal tradition), but he writes extensively on what is often seen as the goal of many in the contemporary charismatic movement: revival. And, he’s right to do so, as he was the primary instrument God used to catalyze this historic awakening from 1949 to 1953 in the outer islands of Scotland.

Duncan Campbell writes of this graced season like this:

This is what I keep seeing as I’m reading his accounts: revival is marked by a deep sense of the presence of God, especially by those who would not normally be aware of Him.

I am reminded, of all things, of the writings of a certain French Catholic mystic monk from the 1600s, who committed his life to live continually in the presence of God.

He writes of his life-long experiment of practicing the presence of God this way:

Elsewhere, he writes that his “prayer was nothing else but a sense of the presence of God” (Fourth Conversation).

If I could try out my own definition of revival, it would be this: revival is a season when God makes it easy to sense His presence. And what that often looks like, at least in the case of the historic Hebrides Revival, is a pervading awareness of the nearness of God in a geographic area.

I’m not into revival because of the number of conversions common, the increase in church attendance, or even the societal reform that follow the best of historic moves of God…I’m in the pursuit of revival primarily because I love God. And if revival is a graced season where it becomes easy to look at Him, I’m all in.

The beauty of the mystics (and what the charismatic church can sometimes lack) is that they give us language to access the goal of revival (the presence of God) not just during special seasons, but today. And this idea is, naturally, deeply rooted in Scripture.

Psalm 11 gives us an interesting picture of how God is spending His time in heaven:

Simply put, God spends his time looking at us (see also 2 Chron 16:9). Later in this Psalm, David writes that “the upright shall behold his face” (v. 7). In other words, the upright look back.

This is profound: the reward of the upright is that we get to see God (see also Matthew 5:8). God looks at us, and we get the privilege, honor, and glory of looking back at Him. Of being aware of Him.

How many of us take the time to notice God looking at us? And how many of us spend time looking back?

So much of the beginning of Jesus’s ministry centers around simply seeing Him. Noticing Him. Being aware of Him. John watches Jesus walk by (John 1:36). He invites his disciples to look at Jesus (John 1:36). Jesus turns and sees the two disciples following Him (John 1:38).

Prayer is simply looking at God to find that He is already looking at you. 

And praying without ceasing is about the discipline of continuing to direct the inward gaze of our hearts toward God, and enjoying His smiling eyes looking at us. Perhaps 16th-century mystics and crazy charismatics have the same goal after all — practicing the continual awareness of God’s presence with us.

I’d love to invite us to take a moment today just to look at Him. If you have the space, I’d love to invite you to close your computer or phone, take some deep breaths, and picture Jesus either in your mind’s eye or sitting in a chair next to you. And take some more deep breaths. And just enjoy being with Him. This is prayer!

P.S. Please always feel free to hit “reply” and tell me what’s impacting you from these emails, questions you have, ways you disagree, etc. Let’s make this a conversation about how we are coming alive in prayer together!