When God Speaks, Will We Answer?

Mar 21

A journey of obedience...and what happens when it’s ignored.

Ryan Fox & Garrett Grahl 3/16-3/19

Before this journey ever began, Garrett and I had been talking about a book that inspired us, God’s Smuggler by Brother Andrew. What stood out wasn’t just the stories, but the way they lived, stepping out with nothing, refusing to ask for help, and trusting God to provide in real time. It challenged something in us. Not just to believe it, but to live it. As we talked, it became clear that this wasn’t something we were supposed to admire from a distance. It felt like an invitation to step into the same kind of obedience. What would happen if we actually did it? That question didn’t sit with us for long. It turned into action.

On Sunday, March 15, 2026, before we ever stepped onto the light rail to the bus station, the Lord had already begun preparing our hearts.

Garrett had written in his journal, “I will show you my ways. The longer you sit with me, the more you will know.” There was a growing sense that something was shifting, something deeper than what we had known before. The word that followed was not gentle or passive. It carried weight. It spoke of a pivot, a turning toward truth, toward the full gospel, toward a life that would no longer be shaped by comfort, but by power. A life marked by signs, wonders, and obedience. A life that might unsettle people, even leaders, the kind of obedience that exposes what is dead, so that something living can grow in its place. It spoke of pruning, of fruit, of expansion beyond what we could see, even beyond borders. We did not fully understand it, but we knew we were being called forward.

At the same time, Ryan was wrestling through his own thoughts the day before we left. Physically, he felt off. Tired, congested, worn down. It would have been easy to call it a bad weekend, but deep down he knew it was something more. A resistance. A pressure, trying to keep him from going. As he prayed, every practical excuse seemed to rise at once. The weather had just dumped over a foot of snow. The temperatures were brutally cold. Bus tickets were nearly gone, and the prices had surged. Everything about the situation seemed to say, “This is not the right time.” Yet, that very tension became more confirmation. The more resistance there was, the clearer it became that we were supposed to go.

He wrote, “I have never left anywhere fully trusting that God will take care of me. He would prompt people to help when necessary. This will stretch my faith. There is no scarcity around me. It is something I create in my mind. We have everything we need, but our flesh always wants more. This will be an opportunity to trust Him fully.” Even in the uncertainty, there was gratitude. A quiet confidence that God’s love would carry us.

That same night, Ryan had a dream. He and Garrett were inside a McDonald’s, cleaning floors and working alongside employees. As they served, conversations began to open up. The love of Jesus was shared, and what started as something ordinary turned into something powerful. Revival began to break out in that place. At the time, it felt symbolic, maybe even random. By the end of the trip, it would feel anything but.

The night before we left, we set our rules of engagement. We would go out the way Jesus sent His disciples in Luke 9 and 10, two by two, dependent, available, and led by the Spirit. We would bring only what we were wearing, our photo ID, and one hundred dollars for transportation. No phone, no bag, no extra supplies, and no Bible, so that we would not be tempted to open it up for answers, but instead recall the Scripture already written on our hearts and rely fully on the Holy Spirit to speak when we did not know what to say. We could not ask anyone for anything. We would trust that God would provide before we even arrived. If He could send ravens to feed Elijah and provide shelter for Mary and Joseph, then surely He could sustain us. We expected miracles, not because of who we were, but because of WHO HE IS.

When we stepped onto the light rail in Bloomington on March 16th, we had no destination and no return plan. No one knew where we were going. We simply prayed, “God, lead us.” When we arrived downtown, we asked Him to show us where the bus station was since we didn’t research beforehand and neither of us had been to a bus station in Minnesota. After walking for a few minutes, both of us felt a quiet but unmistakable prompting to look up. When we did, the station was right there in front of us. It felt almost too simple, but that is how the Lord often works. Clear, direct, and easy to miss if you are not paying attention.

Inside the station, we prayed again, asking where we should go. The answer came clearly. Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Within fifteen minutes, we had purchased a one-way ticket and boarded the bus. There was no hesitation, no second-guessing. Just obedience.

During a midway stop at a Casey’s gas station, Ryan mentioned how good a slice of pizza sounded. It was a passing comment, followed immediately by the reality that we needed to conserve what little money we had left from our bus ticket purchase. We let it go and boarded the bus again. A short while later, a woman from the back approached us. She held out a slice of pizza and said she was not going to eat it and asked if one of us wanted it. It was from Casey’s. The exact thing we had talked about. Thank you, Lord!

Her name was Castilla. As we began talking, she shared that she was a stripper traveling from Minneapolis to Sioux Falls for work. Then she paused and looked at us differently. She said there was something about us, something she could not quite explain. “You guys are ministers, aren’t you?” she asked. That question opened the door. We prayed with her right there on the bus and shared the love of Jesus.

Earlier on the ride, we had been talking about how Scripture says in Ecclesiastes 2:26 the wealth of the wicked is stored up for the righteous and how we needed to be ready to receive. When we arrived in Souix Falls, and stepped off the bus, Castilla came back up to us, reached into her purse, and handed us twenty dollars. “I want to sow into your ministry,” she said. It was such a small moment, but it carried so much weight. God was not just providing. He was confirming that He was with us.

We were dropped off outside the main part of the city, near a technical college, and instead of rushing toward downtown, we felt led to walk the campus and pray. As we moved through the area, Ryan felt a clear prompting that we were going to minister to a police officer. Not long after, a patrol car pulled up behind us which we later found out was the worst part of town and we shouldn’t be walking in this area. We turned and approached his window, and before we could say anything, he said, “Sorry, I was just pulling up here to post up for the night. I didn’t mean to scare you guys.” We smiled and told him that was just fine, then said, “Actually, we’ve been waiting for you. We took a one-way ticket from Minnesota to be here, and it’s not an accident that we are meeting you right now. We have a word from the Lord to share with you.” There was a brief pause, but he was open. We shared the love of Jesus with him, and Garrett delivered the prophetic word he had already received. Afterward, we asked if we could pray with him, and without hesitation, he said yes.

As we continued walking, something caught our attention in the distance. Between two buildings, barely visible, were the golden arches of a McDonald’s. They were small, almost insignificant from where we stood, but instantly recognizable. Ryan stopped. He had seen this before. The dream from the night before came flooding back. We did not know how far away it was or how long it would take to get there, but we knew we needed to go.

On the way, we passed a building called Union Gospel Mission. We took note of it but kept walking. By the time we reached McDonald’s, the city had shut down. The doors were locked, the lights were off, and the temperature was dropping fast. That night, it would reach one degree.

We had nowhere to go.

What followed was one of the hardest nights either of us had experienced. From early evening until the next morning, we walked the streets trying to stay warm. We found stairwells to rest in, rotating between them to escape the wind. Sleep came in short, broken intervals, interrupted by the cold. Our bodies ached, and every hour felt longer than the last. The only movement in the city came from snowplows clearing the roads after the storm.

We encountered several individuals that night who had been turned away from shelters: Cody, Daniel, and Mike. Each had a story, each carried their own weight. We prayed for them one by one, not knowing that those conversations would lead us to the very place God had intended all along. Through them, we learned that they had been kicked out of Union Gospel Mission because they broke the rules; however, they shared that they would be serving breakfast in the morning if we wanted to go there.

When the sun finally came up, we walked back to the mission and were welcomed in as ‘homeless men’. It was humbling, yet it felt right. We took the twenty dollars we had received the day before and gave a portion of it back as a tithe. Later, we learned that the mission had been founded 126 years earlier on that exact day by a man named Thomas Morse, who had once been a murderer. While in prison, a woman came to minister to him, and through that encounter he gave his life to the Lord. He was later pardoned and went on to establish Union Gospel Mission. Hearing that story and realizing we were standing in the second-oldest shelter in the nation made the moment feel even more significant.

We were assigned to a room named Paul, which Garret and I found to be very fitting. Inside were four bunk beds and a man sitting quietly on the bottom bunk. His name was Joseph. He greeted us warmly, with a smile that did not match the weight of what he was carrying. As we got to know him, his story began to unfold. He had spent most of his life in ministry, serving on the streets of Chicago, pouring into others. But in recent years, everything had fallen apart. He had lost his wife, made decisions he regretted, and now found himself battling cancer while facing a trial coming up in court.

Then he told us something that shifted everything.

He had tried to end his life. More than once. And the thoughts had not left him.

In that moment, everything became clear. This was not a coincidence. This was the assignment.

That evening, after chapel, we asked Joseph if he wanted to pray. Not just casually, but deeply. For freedom, for healing, for restoration. He looked at us and said yes without hesitation. We walked with him to a quiet corner of the chapel and began to pray. We asked God to lift the heaviness, to remove the pain, to restore his mind, and to remind him of his purpose. We spoke life where death had been knocking.

When we finished, Joseph sat there in silence, tears welling up in his eyes. Finally, he looked up and said, “I have had people pray like this before, but I have never felt this way. I feel free. I feel alive.” It was not emotional hype. It was real. Something had shifted in him.

We knew that moment was not the end. It was the beginning. We gave him our number, committing to stay connected, to walk with him, to support him as he navigated what was ahead.

Over the next couple of days, we saw God continue to move in ways we could not have planned. Throughout our time there, we spent hours walking the city, covering somewhere between thirty to forty miles as we prayed, listened, and followed His lead. We prayed in the Spirit as we walked, sang hymns and worship songs out loud in the streets, and when prompted, we would stop and pray boldly over areas, people, and situations around us. Ryan received a vision of the Lord assuring us that He would get us home, which anchored us in peace even when circumstances said otherwise.

As we walked and ministered, we began to realize how much of this journey was about planting seeds. In ministry, it is easy to celebrate the harvest. It is exciting to see immediate transformation, breakthrough, and someone say yes. But much of the work is in the planting, and that part often goes unseen.

One afternoon, we spent time with a man named Charlie, who we nicknamed “Cowboy” because of the cowboy hat he wore. As we approached him, it was clear he had been through a lot physically. He was missing half of one foot and several toes on the other. Both of his wrists were in casts, and he told us he had surgery coming up. Even in that condition, he sat there on a wall next to the sidewalk, quietly watching the road construction across the street. As we began talking, he listened intently as we shared the love of Jesus with him. You could tell he was engaged, leaning in, genuinely considering what was being said.

After we finished, we asked if we could pray with him, not only for his salvation and for him to begin a new life walking with God, but also for complete healing in his body, that he would not need surgery and that his feet would be restored. He paused for a moment, looked at us, and simply said, “No, thank you.”

It was hard to walk away from that moment. He was so close, so open, and yet he said no. But as we kept walking, we were reminded that our role was not to force the outcome, but to be faithful with what God had asked us to do. A seed had been planted. Now it would need to be watered. And in time, someone else may be there to see the harvest.

That is the beauty of the body of Christ. As it says in 1 Corinthians 12, we are all members of one body, each with a different role to play. Some plant, some water, and some reap, but it is God who brings the growth. The question is not which role we get to play, but whether we are willing to be faithful in the part He gives us.

We continued on, trusting that God was moving not only in the moments we could see, but also in the ones we could not.

We prayed with a barista, and what began as a simple request turned into an opportunity to share the gospel and speak life into her situation. We were led to get Joseph a CPAP machine, and after a long walk to a medical supply location, we were given one for free, something we could never have arranged on our own. Along the way, there were constant reminders that God was moving not only through us, but all around us, and each step reinforced the same truth found in Isaiah 58:11, that where God guides, He provides.

At the mission, we were also surrounded by people who genuinely lived out what it means to serve. The staff who checked us in and the volunteers we encountered had incredible hearts. They were not just meeting physical needs, they were ministering to people who could give nothing back in return. It brought to mind Luke 14:13-14, where Jesus calls us to invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind, those who cannot repay us, and promises that the reward will come in heaven. Watching them serve with humility, patience, and consistency made it clear that what they were doing carried eternal weight. Their reward will be great, and we felt honored to witness it firsthand.

On Wednesday afternoon, we walked back into the shelter to reconnect with some of the men we had met. As we stepped inside, a volunteer named Jesse, who had not met us yet, stood up from behind the front desk and called out loudly, “Hey, what are you two doing here?” We both responded simply that we were staying there for now. He looked at us more intently and said, “No, you know what I mean. What are you really doing here? You two have the whole staff and volunteers talking. They think you’re either undercover cops or that you were sent in by leadership to get information. No one else wants to ask you, but I will. I want to know the truth.”

There was a brief pause as we tried to process what was happening. Then he continued, “You’re either undercover cops… or you’re undercover missionaries.”

Ryan looked at him and asked, “What do you think we are?”

Without hesitation, Jesse said, “I know exactly what you are. You’re undercover missionaries. You’re here to do the Lord’s work, coming and going as He leads you.” He pointed toward a sign on the wall and continued, “That sign says we are a community. That’s why this place exists. We’re not here to judge. We’re here to be a community. You two are on assignment, doing whatever God is asking you to do. Who are we to question that? Why would anyone choose to stay at a homeless shelter unless God told them to?”

Then his tone shifted as he began to share his own story. “Years ago, God got ahold of me, and I signed up to work for Him. I serve here because it’s not about me. I’ve had men throw jars at my face, spit in my face…” he said, showing us a scar as he spoke. “People ask me why I don’t react, why I don’t fight back. Are you kidding me? Jesus, the Savior of the world, was spit on and forgave. Who am I not to do the same? God has me here to minister and be like Him as much as I can. That’s what you do when you say yes to Christ.”

We stood there, deeply encouraged. In just a few minutes, Jesse had articulated exactly what we felt God had sent us there to do. Earlier that day, Ryan had told Garrett that we would know it was time to leave when someone encouraged us. This was that moment. This was the confirmation.

Eventually, we felt it was time to leave. Before we did, there was one final instruction. We would not take a bus. We would wait. God would send someone.

Ryan sensed specific details. A suburban. Minnesota plates. A couple inside.

We walked to the edge of the city near the highway and stood there waiting. Thirty minutes passed. Then it happened. A suburban pulled up to the light. Minnesota plates. A husband and wife inside. They looked directly at us. We could see them talking. It was clear something was happening in that moment.

Then the light turned green.

And they drove away and took the exit that we would need to get home.

We stood there for six more hours. No one stopped.

In the stillness of that moment, the Lord spoke clearly. He said that He prompts His people, but they do not always obey.

That WAS our ride home.

And they missed it.

That realization settled deeply in us. Somewhere, people are praying every day. Praying for help, for hope, for provision. But those prayers often require someone on the other side to respond. What if that couple had said yes? They would have heard the story. They would have seen what God had done. Their faith would have grown, and it would have spread to others.

Instead, the opportunity passed.

Not because God did not speak, but because obedience did not follow.

This journey was never just about us. It was about learning to hear, to trust, and to respond. It was about stepping into a life where faith is not theoretical but lived out in real time. It was about becoming the kind of people who do not just pray for miracles but are willing to participate in them.