We stand on a borderline dividing an old land we have journeyed through from a new one we have never seen. We owe God a debt of gratitude and praise for all the blessings He’s poured over us in 2025 as well as for walking with us through some dark difficult times in each of our lives. Even as He has been with us in the land we’re leaving, He has promised to never abandon His children in the new territory we’re about to enter.
As we consider all the ways God blessed us in the old year, let us be particularly grateful for the spiritual insights He revealed. Let us thank Him for the way His Holy Spirit quickened within us desires to pray, worship, and humble ourselves before Him, and may we invite Him to breathe revival into each of us in 2026.
Revival is an exciting word that implies bringing something back to life. It includes notions of revitalization, renewal, and restoration, particularly in our faith, worship, and service. One of the most exciting examples of revival occurred in Wales in the early 20th century. At a time when the population was much lower, 100,000 people got saved in less than year!
The spiritual movement was largely led by a 26-year-old coal miner named Evan Roberts and it not only affected people’s prayers and worship; it affected their behavior as well. During the 1905 New Year’s celebration, the Swansea County Police Court reported that for the first time ever, there was not a single arrest for drunkenness! Some officers actually complained of boredom with nothing to do. Can you imagine such a scenario in the US today?
In addition, many bars shut their doors because they had lost so many customers it was no longer profitable for them to remain open. Several thieves actually returned items they had stolen, compelled not by the courts, but by their consciences. During this time, God called many believers to enter the mission field and they scattered all over the world. One of them ended up in Argentina where he introduced a boy named Luis Palau to Jesus Christ. Palau himself became an evangelist and was nicknamed “the Billy Graham of Latin America.” He traveled throughout the world and led millions of people to Jesus before his death in 2021.
One of the most interesting by-products of this revival involved the mules that were used in the coal mines to pull the carts. These mules had been trained to respond to vulgar commands and did so willingly. But when many of the miners got saved, their tongues got saved too and they stopped cursing and the mules had to be retrained to respond to new commands lacking profanity and the taking of God’s Name in vain.
My prayer is that the Holy Spirit might breathe such a revival into Americans in 2026; a revival that would reach into every home and affect everyone from the White House to those without a house. How awesome it would be to see such evidence of true repentance demonstrated in changed behavior throughout our nation!
And I pray it would last. For when Palau returned to Wales years later to thank the Welsh Christians for their influence in his life, he was astounded to find that the impact of this spiritual awakening had all but vanished. Divorce was at an all-time high, crime was widespread, and less than one-half of one percent of the people even attended Sunday worship. In response to this apostasy, Palau produced a film God Has No Grandchildren in which he emphasized that each of us has to make our own commitment to Jesus and we cannot depend on the faith of our parents or grandparents.
As we cross the border into the new land of 2026, let us ask the Holy Spirit to send a lasting revival into America that will change this nation for the better. New Year’s Blessings, George