Does Prayer Change Anything?
How God answered eleven years of prayers by changing my heart
A few weeks ago, my grandmother texted me, “Bethany, I am going through an older prayer journal. I think this was from the family prayer request time. 1/4/15—You asked for prayer that a Northwest church planting opportunity on a trip to Utah would be fruitful.”
I remember asking my grandmother to pray for that trip. As I mentioned in the announcement about our move, the Lord placed church planting on our hearts even before we were dating. We first sought to follow that calling through an opportunity in Salt Lake City in 2015. But at the time, the Lord answered no to that opportunity.
Month after month, we prayed that God would open the door for us to church plant, and we actively sought out partnerships.
God answered no to Seattle in 2017, another opportunity in 2018, and yet another in 2022.
By 2023, it had been eleven years since God had first opened my eyes to the importance of church planting. Yet every time we had tried to walk forward in obedience, the Lord closed the door.
At that time, I lost the desire to try to go down that path again. We now had three young children, a rich community in our local church, and lots of family support. How could we leave now? It would have been much less costly to move away in 2015. But now, it would be so much harder to walk through a door the Lord opened.
I told myself I had misunderstood God’s call. Or that it had just been a way to get me more invested in giving and praying for missions. Surely he wouldn’t call us to go now, when we were already doing so much good where we were planted. I contentedly stopped looking for open doors and settled comfortably into my daily life.
God let me live in that comfortable denial until our church’s missions conference that year. I don’t even remember exactly what the missionary said, but her words pierced my heart that had hardened towards my calling. I sensed God renewing that calling for our family to be a part of church planting, but this time, I wasn’t an eager twenty-one-year-old with nothing to lose.
I knew that if God opened a door the next day, I would say no. My heart was so fearful and comfortable that I would disobey. So I began to pray that God would change my heart.
As I was writing this update, I looked back through journals over the past few years. In each one, I had scribbled “church planting” on the page of requests for myself. Month after month, I prayed that God would change my perspective about this calling.
No longer was I asking for open doors but for an open heart.
Yet that prayer transformed over time. I prayed for willingness and clarity. I prayed for courage and maturity. I eventually prayed again for opportunities.
In 2025, he answered yes to both an open door and an open heart.
My husband and I had sought out many opportunities in the past. This opportunity arrived in a way we never could have orchestrated. After years of praying that God would change my heart, he answered yes! When my husband and I felt the call to join this Washington church plant, I said yes joyfully! The heart that had recoiled at the thought of church planting a few years before now leapt at God calling us to move.
Yes, I cried the next morning thinking about what we would leave, and every day I’m pricked with anxiety and grief. But I can honestly say that the Lord changed my heart to joyfully obey him.
Kierkegaard wrote, “Prayer does not change God, but it changes the one who offers it.” Scripture clearly shows that God works through the prayers of his people, and I believe one of the primary ways he does that is by how a prayer changes the one who prays it. Month after month, the very prayers I offered for a softer heart were softening it as I prayed them.
We would not be moving to Washington if it hadn’t been for those prayers my grandmother prayed in 2015. And the prayers my husband and I prayed in 2017. And the prayers friends prayed in 2022. And the prayers church members prayed with us in 2022. And the prayers my family prayed in 2025.
Does prayer change anything? We could debate all day the tension between God’s sovereign will and the prayers of his people.
But one thing I know for certain, prayer changes you, and it changes me.
If you had asked me three years ago whether I would move across the country to help plant a church, I would have said no.
Today, by God’s grace, I am saying yes.
Prayer may not always change our circumstances as quickly as we hope. But over eleven years, it changed my heart. And it can change yours.
On that note, I would love to invite you to be a part of our prayer team. While I will regularly share updates about our move and ministry here on Substack, I plan to send out a monthly-ish email update with more specific prayer requests and stories of how God is working (that I might not want to be on the internet).
If you’re interested in joining that email list, click here.
What a beautiful testimony of God's timing. I was especially encouraged by the shift you described from praying for an open door to praying for an open heart. That really spoke to me because sometimes God does His greatest work in us before He changes our circumstances. I also loved your grandmother's faithfulness in praying for you all those years. What a gift to look back and see how God was weaving together prayers offered over more than a decade. Thank you for this reminder that when God seems to be saying "no," He may actually be preparing both the opportunity and our hearts to joyfully say "yes" when His perfect timing arrives.