Where Prayers Echo
Recently, I found myself walking up Arthur’s Seat in Edinburgh again, but this time with over 120 young people from the Utah Heritage Youth Chorus along with their leaders.
Or, as a few of my new American friends gently reminded me, “Arthur’s Seat in Edinburg.”
Naturally, I had to pause the spiritual instruction for a small but important language lesson.
“It’s Edinburgh,” I told them. “Not Edinburg.” We had a good laugh about that!
Halfway up the hill, they stopped and sang; “Go Tell the World About Me”.
And it was beautiful.
There was something deeply moving about hearing those young voices rise over the city. The castle in the distance and the old streets below.
As they gathered there, I shared a little of the Orson Pratt story.
In 1840, Orson Pratt came to Scotland as a young missionary and Apostle of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. His early meetings in Edinburgh were not exactly overflowing. Sometimes only a few people came. It would have been easy to feel discouraged.
Late in the spring of 1840 however, he climbed Arthur’s Seat, looked out over the city, and prayed. He asked the Lord to help him find 200 people who were ready to receive the restored gospel.
He did not simply see streets, buildings, smoke, stone, and rooftops, rather he saw souls and ten months later, that goal was miraculously accomplished.
That thought stayed with me as I looked at those young singers.
Nearly two hundred years later, here they were, standing on the same hill, singing of Christ over the same city. Orson Pratt could never have imagined their flights, phones, matching shirts, leaders, buses, cameras, or their questionable pronunciation of Edinburgh.
But perhaps heaven could.
I love the thought that prayers offered in faith can echo far beyond what we see at the time.
Orson Pratt prayed on the hill, but then he went back down into the city and went to work. He preached, printed, invited, endured, and kept going.
That feels like discipleship to me.
Today all of our missionaries serving in Scotland and Ireland, pray too on this very hill and serve in the streets with all the energy of their heart and soul.
They have moments of beauty, clarity, music, and stillness. Then after some time, return to ordinary life and try to live what they have felt.
Doctrine and Covenants 64:33 says, “Be not weary in well-doing, for ye are laying the foundation of a great work.”
Last week, those young people added their small part to that continuing story, with their song on the hill and a prayer in their hearts.
What small act of faith might echo further than you imagine?
