I am delighted to welcome Wendy Murray to my blog. Wendy is sharing on prayer being an act of obedience with a beautiful analogy to gardening. Her new book, “Inner Healing the Franciscan Way, a Holy Re-Ordering of the Soul” publishes on September 9, 2025. You can find more information about Wendy and her book at the end of this article.
Francis of Assisi (1182-1226), after his conversion and upon initiating his religious Order, required of those who sought to follow him that they (among other things) take a “vow of obedience.” In Franciscan parlance, this meant that his brothers and sisters were to submit to their superiors and live in deference, humility, service to one another while undertaking the mission or task assigned to them. In the parlance of “the Franciscan Way”—the topic of my new book— a vow of obedience shows itself in a mindset of surrender of one’s own impulses or inclinations in service to others for the purposes of God under the leading of the Holy Spirit. It is a matter of consecrating one’s heart and will to a higher allegiance.
Prayer is the starting point for cultivating the operations of the obedience in the soul. The spiritual writer Peter Kreeft said, “Prayer is our obedience to God even when it asks God for things, for God commanded us to ask (Matthew 7:7).”
I am a flower farmer and the lessons of the garden have schooled me in the ways in which prayer cultivates the vow of obedience. The work of the gardener is realized in steps: planning the garden, planting of seeds, nourishing and protecting the seedlings, then placing them in nutrient-rich soil, watering, weeding and pruning or pinching them. It means extracting the negative toxins from the soil, pulling weeds, and cutting back dead or unwieldy growth to stimulate healthy growth. Finally, It means harvesting the fruit and bringing the garden to rest when the season is concluded.
Cultivating a vow of obedience through prayer involves similar operations: prayer clears the interior landscape of our hearts and minds of toxins and readies our hearts to receive seeds of new possibility; it performs the needed continual work of watering our souls with the refreshment of communion with God, while pulling out the weeds of sin and bad habits that compete with growing holiness. It involves cutting back disproportionate growth of fleshly inclinations to ultimately bring a harvest of “truth to our mind, goodness to our will and beauty to our heart,” as Kreeft would say. “Praying is like gardening: the growing of something alive—in this case alive for eternity. It is gradual and it is invisible, but it is the difference between life and death.”
And just as the reward for applying such principles in the field renders the farmer a vibrant, abundant, and robust garden, so the benefit of the cultivating obedience through prayer can render the spiritual sojourner a healthy and robust interior disposition. The will and fortitude of the farmer meets the providence and sustenance of God in the garden in fullness and beauty. The one who prays as the farmer farms will gain an aptitude of obedience and reap the promise of holiness.
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Wendy Murray is a skilled Christian writer and journalist with over thirty years of publishing experience. She has written extensively about faith and spirituality, with well-known books like A Mended and Broken Heart: The Life and Love of Francis of Assisi and Clare of Assisi: Gentle Warrior. Her work often explores the lives of saints, showing both their human struggles and their deep spiritual clarity. Wendy now serves as Editor in Chief of Ex Fonte magazine, published by Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.
Wendy Murray’s latest book Inner Healing the Franciscan Way, a Holy Re-Ordering of the Soul will be released on September 9 and is available on Amazon and also from her publisher, Paraclete Press. You can follow her on Substack at https://wendymurray.substack.com/