What if you could be the answer to someone’s prayer?

She did not know about my day. The burned waffles, the lost keys, the cranky teenagers, the hard discussions and the difficult things I was turning over in my brain were not her concern. She didn’t know the prayer I was praying under my breath or how I was certain that I had done it all wrong. Nope. She was just taking a walk.

And on this particular day, so was I. I had my earbuds in, but every podcast made me want to scream and every song made me want to cry. So I just walked. I stared at my shoes and let this litany of hard things become the soundtrack in my head. Lord, I’m pretty sure I’m doing this all wrong. You’ve given me so much, and I’m not sure I have what it takes. You’ve asked me to grow well where you have planted me, but I’m not bearing much fruit. Forgive me. Show me how to do it better.

I prayed. I walked. I kept my head down. Show me how to do this better …

And then suddenly right in front of me was this lady. She pulled her own earbuds from her ears, waved her hands at me and smiled. I half-heartedly nodded and tried to walk around her. But she clearly wanted my attention.

“So this is going to sound a little strange,” she spoke loudly in my direction and blocked the path so I was forced to look at her, “but I was just praying and God told me to tell you something.”

Pardon me? I began to look around certain she had the wrong person. Or thinking I should make a run for it? But the path was deserted and her eyes were locked on mine.

“He said to say that you are a beautiful flower in his garden and he loves you.” She sputtered the words out quickly as if her life depended on saying them. And then she nodded, put her earbuds back in, waved and kept on walking.

I am totally not making this up. As I write it, I realize how unbelievable it sounds. Who would say those words to a complete stranger?

I stood perfectly still in the middle of the sidewalk unsure of what my next move should be. What in the world? Who was that? 

How did she know what I was praying? How did she know about the day I was having or the way I was questioning my place? Or the way I needed God to seem real …

“A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver” (Proverbs 25:11).

Here’s the thing. She didn’t know. She had no idea if I was the praying type; if I knew Jesus or believed in God or any of that stuff. She knew nothing of my day or of me.

But I think there was something she did know. She knew the voice of her Savior nudging her forward. And she knew how to listen.

I wonder what the world might be like if we all obeyed like that.

The note you feel God telling you to write, the phone call you know he wants you to make, the words he keeps giving you to say, the kind way he needs you to treat that stranger, or the new place he may be calling you to go.

What if it didn’t seem weird? What if we all knew that we were just vessels and that God wants to use us to reach out and love others.

Eugene Peterson says it this way in his book Leap Over a Wall, “When we’re living this life right, this is what happens. We pass on the experience, pass on our God-experience to the people we meet. [And then] they experience a piece of what we’ve experienced in God.”

Her words were simple. But. They changed my day. I left my encounter with her turned around and pointed in a new direction.

And the whole incident made me realize I could do that for someone else. I might have to quit walking along staring at my feet and thinking of all that’s wrong, though. I might have to look up; look around and ask God to tell me where he needs me to go and what he needs me to say. And then I might have to just obey him. Even if it seems a little crazy.

That lady on the street? She did it. She said the words and left the rest up to Jesus. It wasn’t a whole sermon (not that sermons are bad;  but maybe not on the street) or an argument or a justification of herself. She simply spoke the good news right into the pathway where God had placed her.

“The Gospel life isn’t something we learn about and then put together with instructions from the manufacturer; it’s something we become as God does his work … in us and as we accustom ourselves to a life of belief, obedience and prayer” (Peterson).

Something we become. We become the Gospel; the Good News. God wants to use us to spread it. And when we obey? Well, who knows what good things he might be bringing to life.

Lord, may we keep our eyes open today. Amen!“Faithfulness springs forth from the earth, and righteousness looks down from heaven. The Lord will indeed give what is good and our land will yield its harvest. Righteousness goes before [us] and prepares the way for [our] steps” (Psalm 85: 11-13).