On the mystery of prayer.
I’m on a zoom call in August with an individual about something totally unrelated to the God-shaped dream of planting a new church that’s been living rent-free in my heart for about a year. After an hour of discussion with this individual, she says “I’d love to hear more about your church plant vision another time because it’s something I think is so important.”
We chit-chat a few more minutes about the strange sense of calling we felt to plant a church—a calling we were not asking the Lord for or pursuing at all until August 2024. We’re about to do the awkward Zoom call goodbye that everyone loathes until she offers to pray for me. At this point, we haven’t shared with almost anyone what we’ve decided to call the church.
She starts praying, and as she does, almost everything she prays is around the theme of a garden. New life, flourishing, depth, growth. I chalk it up in my skeptical brain to coincidence and classic Christian imagery that happened to make its way into the prayers of a random individual.
And then, as if prompted by my skepticism, she prays this line: “God, I thank you for the garden you’re planting in Kelowna.”
My first thought, still skeptical, is “Did she really just pray that?”
Of course she did. Because that’s how prayer “works”, though I don’t think the language of “working” maps onto prayer well in the first place. Prayer is how we tap into the heart of God, and sometimes God is just so kind to let us know he’s right there in the room—or Zoom call—with us as we pray, interceding on our behalf and guiding the prayers of his people.
She finishes praying and I let her know the name of our church, with a similar reaction to the random prophetic guy from last newsletter: “Of course it’s Garden. That’s exactly what I had in my mind.”
Sometimes prayer feels like religious routine, filled with silence and guilt about whether we’re doing it right. And sometimes prayer feels like cracking the door of heaven open for a brief moment, where we get a glimpse of the bigger story God is writing and which we’re privileged to participate in despite our questions, baggage, failures and skepticism.
Prayer is many things, but it’s nothing less than an invitation into the very heart of God, whether we realize it or not.
