Why I believe Ukraine’s daily one minute of prayer is a miracle

What happens when an entire nation falls to its knees in prayer? What can the Holy Spirit speak in 60 seconds to the hearts of a broken country? During the first year of full-scale war in Ukraine, cities around the country began to implement a daily minute of silence every morning at 9am. I remember the first time I experienced it. 

I was walking through the city center of Ternopil, in Western Ukraine, and I heard this ticking sound come over the loudspeakers. “What is that?” I wondered to myself. That’s when I noticed that everyone walking around me had suddenly stopped. They were just standing quietly. It was when I saw a woman bowing her head and making the sign of the cross that in dawned on me. These people were observing 60 seconds of silence. A minute of prayer asking God for peace, and a moment of quiet in recognition that some of the Ukrainian nation did not survive the previous day.

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President Zelenskyy took this 60 seconds of silence a step further by initiating that this minute would be a nationally recognized moment of remembrance and unity.

This past February, in response to the third year of war in Ukraine, President Zelenskyy took this 60 seconds of silence a step further by initiating that this minute would be a nationally recognized moment of remembrance and unity.  During a visit this past spring, at 9am as I was driving through the city center, there were police stopping traffic.  I noticed people getting out of their cars.  I did the same.  And then I heard it, that ticking sound.  Sixty seconds of solidarity.  Sixty seconds where the complete strangers around me became prayer warriors for a nation desperate for divine intervention.

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Today, in the trenches of the battlefield, in elementary classrooms, in flower shops, fruit shops, and grocery stores, and on the busiest highway intersections, Ukrainians are taking a minute to pray.

Today, in the trenches of the battlefield, in school classrooms, in flower shops, fruit shops, and grocery stores, and on the busiest highway intersections, Ukrainians are taking a minute to pray. As a Christian ministry worker, who has spent 30 years of my life ministering to the Ukrainian people, I have to call this movement what it is. A miracle. To stand on a highway and watch Ukrainian men and women getting out of their cars, and often down to their knees in prayer, might be one of the most profound things I have yet to experience in Ukraine’s battle for it’s freedom.

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There can be beauty in our brokenness when we allow Jesus to enter into our pain. When we recognize in our powerlessness, in our desperation, in our loss, that our Heavenly Father means it when he says he will never leave us or forsake us. When there is nowhere else to turn, that is the moment that we so often find the unexpected. That bright light of hope. Hope at the foot of the cross. Hope in the valley of the shadow of darkness. Hope on the battlefield. Hope at the foot of the grave. Hope that Jesus holds us, loves us, and is working powerfully through our prayers. When there is nothing left to loose, or when we are on the brink of losing everything, may we we finally understand the message of the Gospel, and the ultimate victory of that empty grave.