Pray for a Wind

“Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven.” — Matthew 18:19 (ESV)

The same long voyage that nearly ended on the rocks nearly ended a second time — this time not from too much wind, but from none. As the Dumfries came near the north coast of New Guinea, the wind died completely and a strong current took over, dragging the ship steadily toward a line of hidden reefs. The crew put out the long-boat and rowed with everything they had, trying to pull the ship’s head around. It did not work. They drifted closer. On the shore, Taylor could see people running about on the sand, lighting fires — and the captain’s reference book warned that these islanders were cannibals. It was, as Taylor dryly put it, “not a little alarming.”

After a while the captain and Taylor stood on deck in silence. Finally the captain said, “Well, we have done everything that can be done; we can only await the result.” And Taylor answered, “No, there is one thing we have not done yet.” “What is it?” “Four of us on board are Christians. Let us each go to our own cabin and agree together in prayer for a breeze. God can send it now as easily as at sunset.”

The captain agreed. Taylor found the other two believers — the Swedish carpenter and the ship’s steward — and all four went to pray. Taylor had barely started when he felt so certain the request was granted that he could not keep asking, and he went straight back up on deck. The first officer, a hard, godless man, was on watch. Taylor asked him to let down the corners of the mainsail, which had been drawn up to stop it flapping uselessly. “What would be the good of that?” the man sneered. Taylor told him they had asked God for wind, it was coming immediately, and the reef was too close to lose a minute. The officer swore he would rather see a wind than hear about one. But as he spoke, Taylor watched his eyes drift upward — and there, at the very top of the mast, the corner of the highest sail had begun to tremble. “Don’t you see the wind is coming? Look at the royal!” The officer dismissed it as a stray puff. “Cat’s-paw or not,” Taylor shouted, “let down the mainsail and let us have the benefit!”

He did. Within minutes the breeze filled the canvas, the ship was cutting through the water at six or seven knots, and the reef — and the crowd waiting on the beach — fell safely behind them.

Notice how specific this prayer was. Not “God, keep us safe” in general, but “send a wind, now, from this direction, before that reef.” Taylor asked for exactly what the situation needed, and he asked with others, in agreement, which is the very thing Jesus points to in Matthew 18. There is something about praying a concrete request alongside other believers that God honours again and again in Scripture.

A lot of prayer stays deliberately vague, and if you are honest you know why: a vague prayer can never obviously go unanswered. “Bless everyone, be with me today” can never fail — but it also never really tests anything, and it never grows your faith, because you can never point to the moment God moved. Taylor prayed prayers that could visibly succeed or visibly fail, and precisely because of that, he spent his life collecting evidence that God answers.

That takes nerve. A specific prayer is a risk. It puts God’s faithfulness where you can actually see it, which means it also puts your disappointment where you can actually feel it. But it is the only kind of praying that ever taught anyone what God can do.

One thing to do this week: turn one of your vague prayers into a specific one, and if you can, ask a Christian friend to agree with you on it. Not “help me with school,” but the actual thing — the conversation, the exact need, the real fear. Then watch. Taylor built a whole life on prayers concrete enough to be answered in front of witnesses.