With our favorite Playa Bowls in our hands we sat cozied in her car because the Florida warmth had gone missing. We cranked up the heated seats and took bites of our freezing smoothie bowls planning prayer for 2025. The plan since the fall had been to take six weeks off. In transparency, mentally I was throwing a party that I was getting a six week break from leading…

With all the plans in place she pressed in kindly,”… there is a chance that the windows may be delayed, are you positive we should take this break? Should we keep prayer going if they get delayed?”

Quickly I rebuked this idea,”No way! I am taking this six week break, we can start in February as planned.” In a sigh I said, “I just can’t do it.”

I made my plans and I was stubbornly holding onto them tightly, we weren’t changing my plans. MY PLANS is the key phrase here.

I lead a prayer ministry and one aspect is community prayer every Tuesday at The Chapel at Seaside. They informed me in the fall that in January the Chapel was unavailable for hosting prayer as new windows were being installed. The decision to hault prayer for 6 weeks, from mid-December to February was made and I began planning my sabbatical. Coming out of an intense ministry season, I was feeling a little worn down so the timing felt perfect. As an introvert I was dreaming of not leaving my house for days and catching up on reading and writing.

But here’s what happened: Prayer hour in the fall season grew sweeter, more intimate, God was moving in powerful ways. People’s lives were being impacted. The Lord was drawing near in unsuspecting ways and then just two weeks before our break I sense the Lord speaking to me so clearly in the prayer hour, but the vision God was showing me didn’t align with this six week sabbatical about to start. So I filed away in the confused section of my prayer journal.

A few short days before our break was to begin they let me know that windows had in fact been delayed and the Chapel would be open now in Janaury, did I want to continue leading weekly prayer? Without a prayer or hesitation my answer was, no. I would pick back up in February.

I was stubborn in this decision, I was not going to budge.

…..

In the stillness of the night I was jolted from sleep with the phrase that had been locked in my heart, “The Lord is near.” It wasn’t an audbile voice, but it was the Lord speaking clearly, “Katie you are missing me because it doesn’t look like how you thought it would feel.” I sensed the nearness of the Lord in the dark midnight hour but became overwhelmed by a deep grief. By 4am I hopped out of bed to pray and sort through some processings. As the kids began waking one-by-one I finished up and was ready to begin prepping for Christmas just days away.

With a hot coffee in hand I went upstairs and locked myself in the guest room to do some secret wrapping. The room was quiet and my holiday cheer was filling me with joy…. then the Spirit came crashing in.

I bent over to cut some wrapping paper and as clear as day I hear in my soul, ” Katie, the windows didn’t not show up as some random accident. The windows are delayed for a reason and you are missing it. The Chapel is now open to pray”

You would think hearing from the Lord clearly would be this ecstatic response, but in honesty, it was not. I began weeping in dread… I knew exactly what was happening and I began fighting and wrestling, “I can’t Lord. I cannot do this.”

I spent the entire Saturday upset and now facing my idols:
Obedience or my plans?
Obedience or my comfort?
Obedience or my life?
Obedience or my break?
Obedience or neat safe box tied with a pretty bow?

This is was an invitation to once again walk the narrow road, to make a decisions to deny myself and pick up my cross.

I had come to a moment on the guest room floor to surrender all of myself. I had built an altar of selfishness and with fists clinging to MY PLAN, I was in kindness being given an opportunity to repent and obey.

My flesh began wrestling, spending the day in tears, letting the Lord rebuke me, fighting, and ultimately surrendering. God had to tell my heart a thousand ways, “ Katie, I don’t work on your schedule or in your neat planned life. I don’t come when it’s convenient, you will miss me if you think it looks like you won’t be tired or that it seems too hard.”

In my weariness of heart I told the Lord a thousand ways, I don’t think I can do this…. only to be reminded, “You can’t do it apart from me and that’s the point!”

“This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: ‘Not by strength or by might, but by my Spirit,’ says the Lord of Armies. Zechariah 4:6

With trepidation I came down to text Sarah at the Chapel, confessing my stubbornness, revelations and asking if we could in fact continue meeting at the Chapel on Tuesday for prayer now in January.

…..

A few days later Branden looks over and inquires of me, “Katie, why are you not leading 21 days of prayer in January now?” Something that would have never been an option because of the schedule of the Chapel. It is something I have loved being apart of and leading in previous ministry contexts to kick off the new year. I once again grab my phone to call Sarah, ” you may thing I am crazy but I need to ask you….”

I am confident and EXPECTANT for January. because I am standing on two miracles:

1. The windows did not come, leaving the schedule open for January. The Chapel schedule is empty for January. (as a highly sought out wedding venue this is a BIG DEAL!)

2. My heart. I went from a stubborn heart to now leading in January 21 days of prayer…. just like the Lord! Ha! I can only laugh. The Lord can rapidly change our hearts in a moment. I am proof.

I share this story transparently because I want to invite you into something that may cost you something too, your time. I think sometimes we can see the people leading and say, “that’s for them, not me.” Or even assume leading prayer is easy for them, but not me.

Friends, we can do HARD things with the Spirit of the Lord as our stamina, strength, and endurance. We can take our weaknesses and wrestlings and surrender them and let the Lord do miracles through all our inadequacies.

God can’t be controlled, I have to idea what is in store for Janauary. BUT I am expectant. I am standing on miracles and the word of the Lord who promises to draw near when a hungry people come to gaze upon his beauty and seek His face.

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If you are local, I am inviting you to rearrange your January to make an hour a day to Pray together. To Ask the Lord to do exceedingly more than we can even ask or dare imagine in 2025 in Seaside and along 30A.

And for those who are reading this from another city… Would you pray alongside us? And I encourage you to find a corporate prayer meeting in your town! I’m not passionate about prayer – I’m passionate about the presence of God and experiencing more of HIM in our lives.

I don’t want to see people pray more out of duty, I don’t want to see people check a box off their religious “to-dos” that make them feel better.

I want to see others encounter the LIVING GOD and live a surrendered life of love at his feet. There’s a banquet table of a feast awaiting us yet we settle for fake imitation food. This is an invitation to dwell with Him. To sit with him. To know him. Drink from the living water.

21 Days of Prayer: January 7-28th | 12-1pm | Monday-Friday | The Chapel at Seaside