Sudden Floods and Slow Growth: Praying for Wales’ Spiritual Renewal

Owen Cottom

"Guide me O Thou great Jehovah Pilgrim through this barren land"

These words, penned during the 18th Century awakening and belted out by thousands of hopeful fans before each international rugby match, have become an emblem of Welsh culture and identity. They depict the people of God in Wales as Pilgrims in a barren land.

As pilgrims, we are longing for our homecoming. Wales is not our true home. We look to the horizon and see the day ahead when we will land “safe on Canaan’s side” when tears will be wiped away and we will live with Jesus on a renewed earth forever.

But until that glorious homecoming, don’t we long to give our lives to seeing our barren land watered by the gospel? Don’t we long to see our wilderness-Wales become a fruitful land again? Don’t we long to see days like in the 18th Century when the lost come home in multitudes, the church was built up in faith and a whole generation experienced renewal?

That is what Psalm 126 is all about. Here is a ‘Pilgrim’ song (one of the Psalms of Ascents) written from within a landscape of spiritual barrenness. The Psalm begins by reflecting on old, dreamlike days when God renewed the land ...

"Our mouths were filled with laughter, our tongues with shouts of joy. It was said among the nations, ‘The Lord has done great things for them!’"
(Psalm 126:2)

We too can remember such days in Wales. But the question is, what will we do with such memories? We have three basic options ...

1. Cynicism - “that was then, this is now” - casts off the memories of God’s past work as irrelevant remnants of a bygone era.

2. Nostalgia - “those were the good old days” - wishfully living in the memories of God’s past work to avoid dealing with the painful reality of the days we now live in.

3. Prayerful hope ...

It is to this last option that Psalm 126 turns. It teaches us as pilgrims in a barren land to harness the memories of what has gone before and to cry out with renewed desperation…

"Restore our fortunes, O LORD!"
(Psalm 126:4)

What Wales fundamentally needs is the restoration only God can give. Restored to friendship with God, restored to a right view of ourselves as broken but beloved, restored to become agents of love and healing in our communities.

How does this restoration come about? The Psalmist ends with two pictures that sum up what Cant i Gymru is all about and that direct our prayers for this restoration to come in our day:

Sudden flood - pray for revival

"Restore our fortunes ...
Like streams in the Negev"
(Psalm 126:4)

The Psalmist unashamedly prays for a sudden outpouring here. The Negev was an arid wasteland that through flash-flooding could become a fertile landscape. Such is Wales today. There is spiritual dryness everywhere. But all it takes is a move of the Holy Spirit for all that to change. Do we believe this? Have we lost some of the awakening confidence that characterised our forefathers as they boldly prayed for revival in their day?

With chapels closing at an alarming rate across Wales, we need more than a survival mindset and more than maintenance-mode prayer. Now is the time to rise up with desperate prayer for a new outpouring of God’s grace to flood this land. God still works in these ways. Is it time for us to recapture an imagination of what such a flood of heavenly life would look like in our community?

Slow farming - pray for church planting

"Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy"
(Psalm 126:5)

The Psalmist switches images from one form of water (flooding streams) to another (humble tears). One way the land is watered is through a heavenly deluge, but another is through the faithful labour of gospel farmers who sow the good news into hard soil even through tears. I love this image of ‘sowing in tears’ - it reminds us that often planting the gospel into communities is hard work. But it also reminds us of the promise for such labour - ‘they will reap with songs of joy’.

We are so encouraged by those planting churches across Wales right now. It is no exaggeration to say that they are gospel-heroes; laying down their lives in faith and love to see God’s blessing come to the broken. God is at work in such faithful, often unseen service. Is it time that we became more intentional in joining our prayers to their labours?

One way or another

God works in both the sudden flood and slow farming. Whether our land is re-watered by a deluge of outpouring from heaven, or by the steady work of faithful saints laying down their lives and tears to see the soil become soft to the gospel- seed, we will see the land renewed. One way or another, water is on the way.