In 1974 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn put forth his formula for bringing down the Soviet Union. He wrote in an essay entitled, "As Breathing and Consciousness Return", that all that would be necessary to usher in the end of Marxism in Russia would be for every person who loved his country "to take a single moral step within his own power."

Reflecting on the fall of the Berlin Wall, 20 years ago yesterday, we can see, in retrospect, that that was pretty much the way it happened. East Germans driving through Hungary to the West by the hundreds of thousands, candle-light vigils and prayer meetings throughout the old Eastern bloc, and before you know it, the wall is down and the Soviet era with it.

How soon we forget. Or how slow we - Christians, I mean - are to learn. Year by year the Church in America settles more comfortably on the margins of society, while the unbelieving world grows ever more indifferent, if not hostile, to our existence. Will this ever change? Has God forgotten how to revive His Church? Will we never see another age in which the Church has a major influence on every aspect of life and culture?

And are we content with this?

"If My people..." That must be the hugest "if" in all recorded history. Unless Christians are willing to turn to God in prayer and repentance, to change our ways and embrace His Kingdom, and to wait, wait, wait on Him, day and night, we will not be revived. But what a small price this seems! Commit to pray every day? To follow the Spirit as He convicts of this and that and another sin? To take up new life in Jesus in all the details of our lives?

We don't have to start or be a huge ministry. We don't have to travel to remote parts of the world. We just need to pray, repent, and be transformed, one step at a time, one day at a time.

Miss Manners, asked about how to walk in high heels, replied, "Right foot, left foot." How to get revival and reformation going again? Right foot, left foot - pray, repent.

T. M. Moore