Eternal Wall of Answered Prayer: Why 22 years of waiting isn't wasted

I stood in a factory in Portugal last week and stared at something I had waited 22 and a half years to see. It was a piece of concrete.

To anybody else, it might not have looked particularly emotional. To me, it was overwhelming. I cried.  

It was the first of 188 enormous segments that will eventually form Eternal Wall of Answered Prayer, a 169ft Christian landmark we are building near Birmingham in England.

More importantly, it was the first time something I had carried in my heart for more than two decades was finally emerging physically.

In 2004, while carrying a cross around Britain at Easter, I prayed a simple prayer: “God, what do you want me to do next?” An image flashed through my mind of a national landmark declaring what Jesus had done. Eventually that vision became a structure containing one million bricks, each representing a story of answered prayer.

My first reaction was hardly heroic faith. I thought it was ridiculous. I wasn't an architect. I wasn't an engineer. I didn't have the land or the money. I had absolutely no idea how to build a national landmark. So, I prayed.

In fact, I prayed about it for around ten years before I felt God telling me it was time to begin.

What followed taught me something about persistence: receiving a vision is often the easy part. Continuing to believe in it when you cannot see it is much harder. I've concluded it is much easier to believe in Jesus than it is to take Jesus at His word. 

Over the years, people have laughed at the idea. Some thought I was crazy. I’ve had horrible letters and calls — some from Christians — containing verbal abuse and making it clear they hoped I would fail. There were times when I wondered whether they might be right.

There have been delays, disappointments, financial pressures and moments when the obstacles appeared insurmountable. I've prayed desperate prayers. I've questioned God. I've experienced long periods when seemingly very little happened. But I've learned that persistence isn't pretending everything is going brilliantly.

Sometimes persistence is simply getting up the next morning and taking one step, and obedience is choosing to believe despite the facts. In 2016, we needed to raise £45,000 in 40 days just to get the project moving. With four days remaining, we were halfway to our target. I prayed through the night. Then, in the final days, money arrived from people around the world. We reached the target with a day to spare.

That enabled us to launch an international architectural competition. We received 133 designs from 28 countries. We still didn't have somewhere to build it.

Eventually, 10 acres of land near Birmingham miraculously became available. Planning permission followed in 2020. Then came more waiting, rising costs and further challenges. We received one enormous donation and many others. Thousands backed the vision through prayer, time and finance. 

Finally, in November last year, we broke ground.

And now I have stood in front of the first segment.

Prayer has not meant an easy journey. Nor has it meant that God answered everything when or how I wanted Him to.

There have been moments during these 22 years when I have experienced genuine despair. Yet those seasons have taught me something I might never have learned if every prayer had been answered instantly. I’ve learnt the intimacy of knowing Jesus through the visceral struggle, the isolating silence, and the fierce opposition. 

We live in a world obsessed with immediacy. We expect deliveries tomorrow, answers in seconds and success almost instantly. When something takes years, we assume something has gone wrong.

Faith works to a different timetable.

Sometimes the answer to a prayer begins with years in which apparently nothing is happening. And sometimes determination means continuing when other people cannot see what you see.

That doesn't mean stubbornly pursuing every idea that enters our heads. I spent years testing this vision, praying about it and seeking wisdom from people I trusted. Persistence without discernment is merely obstinacy. I have discovered that obedience to Jesus is my fuel for persistence. Once you are convinced God has asked you to do something, opposition is not necessarily evidence that you should stop.

Twenty-two and a half years ago, Eternal Wall existed only as a picture in my mind.

Today, the first of 188 segments has been built. Eventually, those segments will stand together to form the largest Christian monument in Europe, carrying one million stories of people who prayed and believe in a Jesus who answers.

Perhaps that's why seeing that first piece affected me so deeply. It reminded me that waiting isn't wasting.

If you're praying for something today and wondering why nothing seems to be happening, don't assume the story is over.

Keep praying. Keep listening. And, when it's time, keep moving. Sometimes faith looks remarkably like refusing to give up.