Formed in the Deep, Sent to the Sky

When the Environment Is Ready, the Sent Ones Arrive

By Josh Singleton | Founder, The Neighborhood Garden Project

They arrive quietly, like a shift in the wind. Around 9:30 am, the garden sky begins to shimmer—not with rain or sunlight, but with motion. Dragonflies. Dozens. Maybe hundreds. You won’t catch them in a photo. And maybe that’s the point. They don’t pose. They don’t wait to be seen. But when they’re here, they fill the air with purpose—darting above the beds, just out of reach, like messengers sent in waves.

What most don’t see is how long they’ve been preparing. Before a dragonfly ever flies, it lives underwater for months, sometimes years. Hidden as a nymph, it hunts in the silence of the pond floor—growing, waiting, being formed. Then, when the water warms and the light is right, it climbs out of the deep, sheds its former skin, and takes flight. No ceremony. Just emergence. Their transformation doesn’t need direction. It needs readiness.

Every morning, around the same time, they appear. Not because they keep a schedule, but because they’re built to respond to rhythm. Dragonflies are cold-blooded, so they wait for the sun to warm their wings. When that moment comes—usually around 9:30—they lift off. Their arrival is never late, never forced. It’s just right.

What’s always amazed me is how they return year after year. Not the same dragonflies—but the same timing, the same sky, the same hovering above the garden. They don’t follow migration routes. They don’t inherit maps. But somehow, they find their way. They’re drawn not by memory, but by alignment. By conditions that match something written into their design. They come because something in the garden resonates with what’s inside of them. That mystery of attraction feels like the Spirit to me. God sends people the same way, not because we’ve posted signs, but because something has been cultivated in the soil that speaks to what they carry.

And when they arrive, they don’t waste time. Dragonflies aren’t fluttering for fun. They’re on mission. With over a 90% success rate, they are some of the most efficient hunters on earth, taking out mosquitoes, gnats, midges, and flies before they ever become a threat to the garden. They thin the air without a sound. They do what needs to be done and disappear by nightfall.

We’ve come to embrace what most people try to eliminate. The puddles, the standing water, the inevitable swarms of mosquitoes. We don’t ignore them, but we also don’t panic. Because we know what they attract. That standing water becomes a signal to the dragonflies: this is a place to hunt. And it’s not just mosquitoes. The garden hosts a full menu of winged movement—flies, moths, gnats, and everything in between. A full table. A living ecosystem. We don’t swat the problem. We steward the solution. Sometimes the very things we’d prefer to avoid are the things that draw in heaven’s help. We don’t get dragonflies without a menu. We don’t get the miracle without a little mess.

By evening, they’re gone. Hidden again in tall grass or low limbs. But the impact remains. They remind me that not all movement needs an audience. Not all help comes from who we expected. And not all messes need to be cleaned up to be holy.

Their pattern parallels the One I follow. Jesus spent thirty years in hiddenness. Not wasted years. Not passive years. But years of deep formation. Years of obeying earthly parents while carrying heavenly authority. Years of learning the rhythms of carpentry, of silence, of submission, of holding back divine power until the Father said, “Now.” He wasn’t waiting to be noticed. He was waiting to be released. There’s a difference.

When He finally emerged, it wasn’t with spectacle—it was with certainty. Not to entertain. Not to perform. But to intercept what was killing the harvest. To confront the lies, break the systems, heal what was diseased, and restore what had been trampled underfoot by religion and empire. His public ministry lasted just three and a half years. Brief, but unstoppable. Heaven only needed a short window, because the vessel was fully formed in the hidden place.

He didn’t waste motion. He didn’t explain Himself. He didn’t chase applause. He carried a clarity so piercing that people either followed Him or plotted against Him. He moved with precision and holy efficiency. Every step was timed. Every word was aligned. Every miracle was layered with meaning, not just for the one receiving it, but for generations who would look back and say, He was never guessing.

And like the dragonfly, He didn’t come to hover. He came to hunt. To hunt down what devours. To target what buzzes around our souls, distracting and diseasing our purpose. To intercept sin midair before it could land and reproduce. To declare, once and for all, that life—not death—gets the final word.

His life teaches me that impact isn’t about visibility. It’s about obedience. And obedience is about timing. Not just doing the right thing, but doing it when the Father says. That’s the part we forget in a world that rewards speed and spectacle. The Kingdom doesn’t reward effort or emotion—it responds to alignment. Neither striving nor sincerity move Heaven. Agreement does. And alignment only comes from stillness. From the long years in the water. From the slow crawl up the reed. From the willingness to stay hidden until the light touches your wings and says, “Now go.”

That’s the mystery of attraction. We didn’t lure them in with effort or master planned garden. We didn’t market the moment. We simply created space for the assignment to be recognized. And somehow, it was. Without announcement. Without striving. They knew where to go.

That’s how the Spirit moves. He leads those who are being sent, not toward the loudest need, but toward the deepest readiness. Not toward the place with the most exposure, but toward the place with the most surrender. That’s the mystery the flesh can’t decode. Kingdom movement isn’t drawn to noise. It’s drawn to resonance. And resonance only comes when what’s above finds agreement in what’s below.

The Spirit doesn’t follow scarcity. He doesn’t hover over panic. He doesn’t land where there’s control. He comes where there’s water—living water, stirred water, surrendered water. He hovers where heaven can land. Where someone has already dug the well. Where a people have stopped trying to impress God and started to agree with Him and follow His voice.

This is why attraction in the Kingdom has almost nothing to do with visibility. It has everything to do with spiritual frequency. Dragonflies don’t follow signs—they follow conditions. The ones sent by God don’t follow presence. That’s why some people find themselves magnetically drawn to places they never expected. It’s not charisma pulling them in. It’s spiritual climate.

And that’s what we’re stewarding here—not a project, not a plan, but a spiritual climate. One that says, "We may not have it all figured out, but we’ve made room. We’ve stopped pretending. We’ve stopped covering the mud. The water is moving. And we’ve prepared a place for Heaven to land."

So when someone shows up out of nowhere—uninvited, unexpected, but unmistakably sent—we don’t question it. We just look up and say, “Of course. The air must’ve changed. The garden must be ready. The Father must’ve whispered, Now.”

So when the sky stirs and I hear the soft shimmer of wings above the soil, I just stand still and whisper back, “I see You. Thank You.”