So, I hated life. King Solomon

Your success and happiness lies in you. Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties. Helen Keller

How is it that a king who had been given wealth and power and peace and wisdom could hate life, while a woman without sight and hearing was filled with joy and happiness?

Resolve! Resolve, not just in any old source, but a resolve that comes from God and which can, if we let it, dwell within us. It is this resolve, I am convinced, that we need right now. The world needs it, our nation needs it, the church needs it, and we as individuals need it.

The First Great Awakening occurred in Europe with men such as John Wycliffe, Martin Luther and William Tyndale. The Bible had been kept in Latin and was literally chained to the pulpits. The leader's thinking was that the Bible was not for the little people. Then came those three men who translated the Scriptures into English and German, and the world has never been the same.

Once people found out what God wanted from them, they woke up. The millennial-long Dark Ages, interrupted for only a brief time during Charlemagne's reign, was now at an end.

The Second Great Awakening began in America during the early 19th century. Free men realized that many of their religious leaders were every bit as corrupt as King George had been. Religion was at a low point and the consequences were showing up in society. So, righteous men and women began seeking God in a different way - not through the whims of their religious leaders - but in truth and spirit... and it changed the world.

If you and I want a Third Great Awakening, it will require a resolve to turn away from the dictates of power hungry men, whether in politics or religion, and a turning back to God. This will require the same things that accomplished the first two great awakenings - an opening up of God's word.

It will also require prayer. We cannot hope to understand what God has for us if we are not honestly and sincerely seeking His Divine guidance. I realize that this will seem foolish to some... that it will somehow seem "unenlightened". In fact, it is just the opposite.

We live in a time where our political leaders actually believe they are here to assist people in using whatever gender of restrooms they wish, and to control our intake of something called "trans fats". We also live in a time where many of our religious leaders honestly believe that they can change or remove those difficult passages of Scripture that no longer conform to the ever changing social mores of this "enlightened" era.

It is time for a Third Great Awakening! I do not believe it can happen with people looking for great reformers to lead them. I believe it can only happen if you and I will wake up and let God lead us.

It will begin with prayer.

Is any one of you in trouble? He should pray. James 5:13, NIV

Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly and abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us. Ephesians 3:20, NKJV