[Image: Double Falls, 2008, JA Van Devender]
Watkins Glen St. Pk., Finger Lakes Region, New York, State.
Acts 3:19–21 (NKJV)
19 Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, 20 and that He may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you before, 21 whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began.
It's almost like entering another world. The hot August sun was beating down above the rim of the gorge and everything was high-contrast bright: sun-glasses were mandatory. Yet, with every step down the staired pathway you could feel the temperature dropping, the air stirred by the rushing water gave a gentle breeze and the hot dust particles were washed out of the breathable atmosphere. The most descriptive term for the experience... "refreshing." Even before commencing to explore all the other vistas, I just paused and let the pleasantness do its healing work. The hurly burly highway was "out there" somewhere, but here was peace and rest.
The term "refreshing" is not common to the Scriptures, occuring only one other time that I know of in the canonical text, but Peter chose precisely the right term in communicating with those listening to his proclamation. "Repent... so that the time of refreshing may come..." How clear and compelling are those words. Failing to repent is like choosing to intentionally bypass an oasis in the middle of a desert. It's remaining in a dry and barren land when fertile valleys and cool breezes are over the ridge. Choosing to remain in our sins, to arrogantly demand that God conform His will to ours rather than the opposite, to love the snakes that leave their deadly venom in us every time we pick them up rather than hating them and leaving them alone, this is the foolishness of man.
That the "time of refreshing may come"... that the times when we can actually feel the burdens lifted from our shoulders become our every day experience... that the times when our unhappy dependence on the fickle opinion of others trap us in endless self-doubt be replaced by a certain abiding self-confidence that is the essence of Christian freedom... when we can face each day, with all of its trials, knowing that they cannot defeat us nor unduly destroy our hope. This is what it means to be refreshed. And it is not only offered, it is promised, upon condition of repentance.
What a great grace repentance is... how wrongly it is despised... how slanderously it is depicted as being essentially mournful. It is life and abundant life at that. And it is there... in the Savior's hands... held out before us to take, eat... this is my body, broken for you.
God never leaves His people without hope of refreshing. When the sun blazes down and we feel withered, dried up, our tongues parched and without much hope... it is refreshing we need. And it is there. Repentance is simply reminding ourselves of who God is and who we are, when we have forgotten. It is going back to Him and confessing the despair that we have allowed to extinguish our joy. It is sitting and allowing the truth of His love for us, a love that is greater than our sin, more compelling than our weakness, beyond our comprehension, to waft its gentle, cooling breeze on our spiritual skin.
A time of refreshing is what we need. Lord God we need it... not just for our individual lives as greatly as that is the case, but also for our Churches, for your people, and for this blind and foolish nation in which we live. Give us the grace of repentance and turn our hearts to You in whom the healing balm, the only healing balm, is to be found. Give us cool water to drink and with which to wash our face. O Lord, "how can Jacob stand, he is so small"... refresh him... refresh us... revive us again. (cf. Amos 7:2-5)
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