1. The Meeting in Kalimpong
It was the early 1950s, in the hill town of Kalimpong—that last green shoulder of India before the snow peaks of Tibet. My father had been assigned there as a young medical missionary. He could look north and see the white ridge of Kanchenjunga, so close it almost felt like the threshold of another world.
At that time Tibet was still open, still mysterious.
The plan was that our family would follow once Dad established the post.
But before the papers cleared, the border closed.
Communist troops crossed the passes, and an entire kingdom slipped behind walls of silence.
Yet just before that door shut, something remarkable happened. Word spread through town that the Dalai Lama, still a teenager then, was passing through Kalimpong with a small retinue of monks. Merchants closed early; pilgrims filled the narrow lanes. And my father was invited, with a few others, to meet him.
He later told me the meeting was brief but unforgettable.
The young Lama entered quietly, smiling the way mountain light softens a room.
They spoke through an interpreter—my father about medicine and mercy, the Lama about compassion and peace.
When they parted, the Dalai Lama lifted his hand in blessing.
Outside, the wind caught the rows of prayer flags, sending color and movement rippling across the sky.
And my father stood there a long time, wondering—
Where do those prayers go?
To whom are they sent?
Does God hear the prayers that ride the wind?
2. Where Do the Prayers Go?
That question has never left me.
Years later, I found myself walking the same Himalayas, May 1974.
The air was cool and sharp.
The river thundered below.
And above me, lines of faded prayer flags fluttered between the pines.
Each one carried a printed mantra, ancient syllables meant to bless the world as the wind passed through.
And I thought: This is their worship.
The wind is their choir; the hills are their cathedral.
They’re sending prayers into the sky—
and we do it too, don’t we?
We just use different forms.
Muslims call theirs from minarets five times a day.
Catholics light candles.
Adventists go to camp meeting, pitch tents, sing, and pray.
Every culture has its own language of longing.
Every people builds a way to remember the Divine.
So again—Where do the prayers go?
Does God hear them all?
Does He answer?
3. The God Who Hears
Scripture gives a surprising answer.
He heard Hagar crying in the wilderness.
He heard Cornelius, the Roman officer who didn’t yet know Christ.
He heard the thief on the cross, breathing his last.
God hears because He loves.
He's not listening for perfect theology; He listens for honest need.
The psalmist said, “You hear my voice in the morning.”
Paul said even “the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.”
So yes, He hears. He also draws.
He takes every true longing and turns it toward truth.
That’s the missionary work of the Holy Spirit
—to take the wind of human searching and aim it toward Jesus.
4. No Restrictions to My Prayers
That’s why I love that line we say sometimes:
“There are no restrictions to my prayers.”
God meets me in my habits, my scribbled lists, my morning walks, my whispered thoughts before sleep.
He doesn’t scold me for my methods. He meets me in them.
Because it’s never the form that moves His hand—it’s the faith that opens His heart.
Remember David?
He didn’t get instructions for a new ritual. He got a sound.
>>“When you hear the sound of marching in the tops of the balsam trees, then move, for the Lord has gone before you.” (2 Samuel 5)
The wind became the signal that God was already on the move.
5. Our Little Reminders
People everywhere use helps to remember the sacred.
Tibetans turn prayer wheels.
Catholics finger rosary beads.
And we wear wristbands stamped with WWJD—What Would Jesus Do?
Different symbols, same impulse: we’re forgetful creatures trying to hold on to something holy.
That wristband isn’t magic.
It doesn’t make you righteous.
But when your hand reaches for a steering wheel, a handshake, or a keyboard, it asks the question again:
“What would Jesus do right here?”
It’s a modern prayer wheel, except the motion it’s meant to turn is our character.
The difference between superstition and faith is relationship.
Superstition tries to control God;
Faith allows God to control us.
6. When Ritual Replaces Relationship
The Jews understood symbols too.
God gave them good ones—phylacteries on their arms, fringes on their garments, the Ark of the Covenant.
But what began as reminders became performances.
Jesus said, “They make their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their garments long.” (Matthew 23:5)
They wanted to be seen as holy instead of being holy.
And long before that, Israel carried the Ark into battle like a lucky charm (1 Samuel 4).
They shouted, “The Ark of the Lord is with us!”—and lost the war, because the presence of God can’t be carried in a box when it’s missing in the heart.
The prophet Hosea cried, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.”
Isaiah said, “These people honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.”
The symbols weren’t evil; the forgetting was.
God wanted the law written on their hearts, not tied to their heads.
7. Our Own Phylacteries
And here we are, twenty-one centuries later, polishing new versions of the same mistake.
We post verses, wear crosses, print slogans.
We track Bible-app streaks, count church attendance, measure spirituality in clicks and likes.
We consume sermons as if discipleship were a playlist.
We signal virtue louder than we practice compassion.
None of it is wrong in itself—until it replaces relationship.
Then it’s a phylactery with a battery.
We have the form of godliness, but not the fire.
We’ve perfected the look of devotion, but lost the sound of wind in the trees.
8. When the Phone Prays for You
Now our devices will even do devotion for us.
There’s an app that will recite Scripture all night while you sleep, another that spins digital prayer wheels, another that records your gratitude journal automatically.
You can outsource your soul to technology.
But if your phone prays while your heart sleeps, what good is the noise?
God isn’t moved by automation; He’s drawn by affection.
He doesn’t need an algorithm; He wants an Amen that rises from a living heart.
We can let the app do the reading, the podcast do the praying, the playlist do the worship—and still wake up empty. Because faith isn’t about downloading content; it’s about encountering Presence.
The Jews once bound the Word to their foreheads.
We carry it in our pockets—and still forget.
9. The Languages of Longing
And yet, across the world, the longing continues.
Muslims wail the call to prayer from minarets five times a day.
Christians light candles in dark cathedrals.
Adventists gather at camp meeting, singing under the stars.
Each act, each rhythm, is humanity’s way of saying, “God, we want to be near You.”
Different sounds, same ache.
The muezzin’s cry, the monk’s chant, the hymn at sunset—they’re all the wind trying to speak the unspeakable.
And the amazing truth is, God can use every one of them to stir a soul toward Himself.
But He always calls us deeper.
Because it’s possible to hear the call and not answer.
To light the candle but never let it burn inside.
To attend camp meeting but never camp in the presence of Christ.
The form is the doorway; the relationship is the room.
10. God in the Trees
David understood that true faith listens.
When the Philistines came against him again, God said, “Don’t go straight up. Circle behind them. Wait by the balsam trees. And when you hear the sound of marching in the tops of the trees, then move, for the Lord has gone before you.” (2 Samuel 5:24)
That’s one of the most beautiful pictures in Scripture.
God didn’t give David a new ritual. He gave him a wind.
He said, “When you hear Me move—when the Spirit rustles through the branches—step out. I’m already ahead of you.”
The victory wasn’t in the strategy.
It was in the sensitivity—the willingness to wait until God moved.
The same Presence that whispered through those trees is still whispering through the flags that flutter on Himalayan ridges, through the palms outside a church, through the hearts of believers who dare to pause long enough to listen.
11. The Wind Still Moves
Sometimes we want God to shout.
We want the thunder, the earthquake, the fire.
But Elijah discovered that the Almighty often comes in “a still small voice.”
The Tibetan hears it as the wind.
David heard it in the trees.
You and I hear it in the quiet conviction that says,
“This is the way—walk in it.”
The wind of God’s Spirit is not tied to geography or religion.
It blows where it wills. (John 3:8)
And when it blows, something inside us knows.
Every true prayer—whether whispered in a monastery, cried in a hospital, or sung under a tent—moves toward that same Breath.
12. God’s Direction: From Upward to Downward
Every religion on earth teaches people to send prayers up.
But the gospel declares that God came down.
That’s the hinge of history.
We reach upward; He reaches downward.
And when His Spirit fills us, the wind isn’t just around us—it’s in us.
Paul wrote, “The Spirit Himself intercedes for us.” (Romans 8:26)
So while monks spin wheels to send their petitions heavenward, the Holy Spirit spins within our hearts, shaping our sighs into prayer.
That’s the miracle: the Wind no longer just carries prayers; the Wind becomes the prayer.
13. What the Wind Teaches Us
When I stood along Yamunotri Road that May of 1974, I watched the prayer flags whip against the sky, each thread frayed from years of weather.
They didn’t last long, but maybe that’s the point.
The fading, the tattering, the releasing—that’s how the prayer is completed.
Faith is not about holding on; it’s about letting go.
And as I watched them dance, I thought of my father on that ridge in Kalimpong two decades earlier.
He met a young Dalai Lama before the gates of Tibet closed.
He heard words about compassion and healing.
He saw the wind lift the flags and wondered where those prayers went.
Now I knew.
The wind that carried those prayers had never stopped blowing.
It had crossed mountains, oceans, generations—until it found me.
Not to make me Buddhist, but to remind me that God’s Spirit cannot be fenced in.
He moves wherever hearts are open.
14. No Restrictions to the Wind
That’s why we say there are no restrictions to prayer—because there are no walls high enough to stop the Wind.
You can pray in a church or a cave, in a market or a minaret, on your knees or in your car.
God isn’t waiting for the right posture; He’s waiting for the surrender of the heart.
The moment the heart turns toward Him, the Wind begins to move.
You can’t manufacture the breeze.
You can only catch it—set your sail and let Him carry you.
Religion builds fans; the Spirit sends wind.
15. Symbols and Substance
So let’s pull the threads together:
The Tibetan turns a wheel.
The Muslim calls from the minaret.
The Jewish priest ties a phylactery.
The Christian wears a wristband.
The Adventist gathers at camp meeting.
All different forms—but none of them can substitute for presence.
The question is not, What symbol do you wear?
It’s, Where is your wind?
Is the Spirit moving through your life—or have you built a shrine to a still breeze from the past?
16. Modern Idols of Method
We have our digital devotions, our polished programs, our predictable prayers.
We’ve organized the wind into schedules and called it revival.
We’ve replaced encounter with efficiency.
Maybe that’s why we need to return to the trees—to the place where David waited for a sound, not a system.
He didn’t move until he felt the breeze of God’s command.
And when he did, victory came from presence, not performance.
17. God’s Whisper to the Church
I believe the Lord is saying to His church today:
“Stop trying to spin the wheel faster.
Stop thinking louder is holier.
Wait for the sound of My moving.”
The revival we keep planning will never arrive on schedule.
It comes when hearts grow still enough to hear the Spirit’s rustle.
When the church stops managing God and starts waiting for Him.
Maybe that’s why the wind image keeps returning—it’s the only thing we can’t control.
You can’t hold it, bottle it, brand it, or predict it.
You can only stand in it and let it move you.
18. The Spirit’s Answer
So, does God hear the monk’s prayer?
Yes—because God hears every longing that reaches upward.
Does He answer?
Yes—but His best answer is always the same: Himself.
He is the fulfillment of every prayer ever whispered into the wind.
He is the Compassion the Dalai Lama described, the Mercy Israel sought, the Presence David heard in the trees.
All of it finds completion in Jesus Christ—the Word made flesh, the Wind made visible, the God who came down.
19. The Revival Moment
And now we, too, must listen for that sound.
We’ve built our cathedrals of convenience, our apps and playlists, our slogans and programs.
Revival will never come through management.
It will come through movement—the movement of the Holy Spirit through surrendered hearts.
When the Lord went before David, the sound of marching filled the treetops.
When the Spirit went before the disciples in Acts 2, a rushing wind filled the upper room.
And when the Spirit goes before us today, there will again be the sound of movement—repentance sweeping through families, compassion flooding our communities, grace replacing pride.
That’s what I’m praying for.
Not louder music, not flashier forms—just wind.
Holy, unpredictable, unstoppable wind.
20. The Appeal — Step Into the Wind
Maybe you’ve been spinning your own wheel—repeating the motions, hoping the machinery of religion will move the mountain in your heart.
Maybe you’ve lit the candle, sung the song, gone to camp meeting, and still felt dry.
Friend, the answer isn’t in doing more.
It’s in waiting for the sound in the trees.
The Spirit is already on the move.
Can you hear Him?
He’s rustling through your conscience, whispering through conviction, stirring the leaves of your heart.
He’s calling you to rise and follow where He’s already gone.
The same wind that carried prayers from Tibet, the same wind that moved through David’s trees, the same wind that filled the upper room—is blowing in this room right now.
Not a memory, not a metaphor—the Presence of the Living God.
21. Revival Energy Close
So I’m asking you—
Do you want the real wind?
Do you want more than forms, more than flags, more than slogans?
Do you want the Spirit of the Living God to march through the trees of your life?
Then stand.
Lift your hands, not your methods.
Lift your heart, not your phone.
Tell Him, “Lord, I don’t want an app that prays—I want a soul that listens.”
Tell Him, “Breathe on me again.”
Because when the wind prays, everything moves— chains break, hearts open, lives ignite.
And when that sound fills the trees again, the church will rise like an army going forward—not because we spun a wheel, but because God went before us.
So wait for the wind.
Listen for it. Then move— because the Lord has already gone ahead.
