God gave me the name of a mountain range and told me to pray for it. Here’s what happened next

A few years ago, I awoke one morning feeling an unfamiliar grief around a name I had never heard before: ‘The Boomer Range’.

I hadn’t heard anyone say it aloud — I had simply felt it by the Spirit of God. It was as though a strange new land I’d never heard of was crying out for help. 

I opened a map of Queensland, Australia, where I live, and began searching. My intuition pointed to a particular region but I couldn’t find anything by that name. There were a lot of mountain ranges, but none called ‘The Boomer Range’. 

“Maybe I heard wrong?” I thought. Pushing my original impression aside, I got on with my day, but several hours later I felt it again. More intensely. Louder.    

I began to message friends who had travelled through the location I’d been researching: “Morning! I know this is a weird question and super out of the blue, but would you happen to know of a place called ‘The Boomer Range’?”  

The first travelling friend got back to me with a “Nah, sorry Cath. Can’t help.”  

The second: “No, sorry. I’ve never heard of a range called that.” 

“Ok, obviously I’m losing the plot,” I thought. “All signs point to crazyville.”

The range is real

The following morning, I awoke with the same name in my spirit yet again. It was louder. More insistent. I decided to contact one more friend who lived in Central Queensland:

“Jaz, do you know anything about The Boomer Range?” 

The Boomer Range was real. It did exist. She described to me which mountains and ranges formed it, and they were in the location I had been searching on the map.  

I then asked Jaz a question based on what I was feeling: “This is a long shot, but do you know if there have been any rumours of bloodshed on the land, kidnapping, or of any kind of mining or stripping the land?” 

She responded with messages describing how all the above had happened on the land over the previous couple of years, citing local newspaper articles and groups on Facebook.  

So I prayed: “Ok, Father God — is there was anything you want me to pray or declare over the land?” 

The answer came clearly, I was to:

• Declare protection and peace over the range,
• Pray that the land would be healed from the traumas conducted on it
• Pray that no further traumas could take place on it
• Pray that the locals would stand against any future destructive plans
• Intercede that the eyes of the people doing the stripping and meddling would be opened.

And so, I did.  

Since then, The Boomer Range has continued to surface in my spirit. Each time it does, I have ask Father God if there’s anything to be prayed or declared over it, then I respond.  

Not as green as it seems

The continent of Australia is not all lush and green. Around 18 per cent of our land is made up of desert. A further 35 per cent struggles with long, dry droughts and most of our population, roughly 87 per cent, live along our coastline. Only a small percentage of us live inland.  

Many wind farms  — around 4,000 wind turbines in total  — are planned for a great portion of our beautiful Queensland mountain ranges, and most of those ranges belong to the Great Dividing Range which runs parallel to our coastline.

To do this, the powers that be will bulldoze over the top of each range, destroying protected tree species, disrupting bird and animal habitats, and introducing potential infrasound, via wind turbines. 

Australia needs its greenbelts. Talking about being “green” whilst simultaneously destroying precious greenbelts, feels, to me, like an extraordinary form of gaslighting. Too many bureaucratic decisions have been made by people who have no connection to the land – or to creation in general.

Maybe it’s time for people in seats of power to take time out and reconnect with the people, places and things for which they are making decisions?  

A short stay at a regenerative farm in Regional Australia, camping in a rainforest in Far North Queensland, working at a cattle ranch in outback Australia, or walking anywhere where bare feet meet actual earth, might quickly clear up a multitude of misconceptions and reveal how important it is to keep healthy ecosystems intact for the overall health of the planet.  

God’s creation communicates

You can read any number of forestry articles or nature science journals on trees, fungai, language and ecosystems which show that creation communicates in many different ways. German forest scientist Peter Wohlleben’s book The Secret Wisdom of Nature reveals just how intricate creation’s ecosystems are. 

But being aware of creation and experiencing it are two completely different things.  

Sometimes I ask myself: When was the last time you watched the clouds go by? When did you last take a walk in the rainforest? When was the last time you took a stroll by a creek, stood in the sun, or danced in the rain?

If my answer is that it has been more than a couple of days, I reprioritise. 

Our God ordained role

Our planet was designed by Father God. Formed by his word. And after he was done designing it all, he looked at it and saw that it was good. No more than a few verses later, God hands over the care and governing of creation to humankind. 

Sprinkled throughout the Bible are references to either how to care for creation, or what caring for it looks like: Genesis 1:27-28, Ezekiel 34, Psalm 89:9, Psalm 11:2, Matthew 8:23-27, Mark 4:35-41, Luke 8:22-25, Mark 11:12-25. They all speak of the different ways in which humankind has been invited by God to take authority over, tend, govern, redirect, and care for creation.

I always think that if Jesus, as God, became a man to connect with us and to spend time with us, then the least we could do is reconnect with the very creation we were given charge over, because care becomes easier when the heart unites with process. 

A few months ago — and close to the last hour – some Central Queensland locals heard about a wind farm that was scheduled for construction on Moonlight Range — a range that is a part of the greater Boomer Range and just north-west of Rockhampton.

The locals rallied, got news coverage, started protesting, and stood on the new State Code 23 against the plans.

At the time of my writing this article, the Queensland Government made the decision to cancel the Moonlight Range Wind Turbine project. The headlines centred around the projects $1bn (£737m) dollar cost and which premier had cancelled it.

All I could feel as I read about it all was a distinct moment of gratitude to Father God that the Moonlight Range would be safe for the time being.  

Returning to Genesis

I was proud of the locals of Rockhampton and the surrounding areas who took a stand for creation and made sure it was being cared for in the most basic of ways — allowing it to live. 

Today is World Environment Day. The vision is to bring together millions across the world, “in a shared mission to safeguard and restore our planet.” They also talk about, “empowering governments, businesses, communities and individuals to drive sustainable change.”

What if the key to “driving sustainable change” wasn’t found in new plans — but in returning? Returning to our original commission by God: to work and care for the creation he gave us authority over. To see the earth in all its glory and detail through his eyes, and to say once again that “it is good.”