The devil resists serious, focused prayer because he's defeated by it. And so the devil will try to attack our concentration in prayer; he will try to confuse or contradict the content of our prayers; he will do his best to distract and/or divert us in prayer so that we're crippled by inconsistency.

Do you sometimes feel that you just can't take one more thing? Even in your misery, be mindful that the very weight of your burdens and the intensity going to use in your life to trigger an experience of personal revival.

If God can bring blessing from the broken body of Jesus and glory from something that's obscene as the cross, He can bring blessing from my problems and my pain and my unanswered prayer.

Faith is like a tender plant, rooted in Christ alone, watered by the Spirit and the Word, strengthened by the winds of adversity and the sunshine of blessing.

I believe our nation is in deep trouble. We seem to have lost our identity because in many ways we're separated from God. I believe it's imperative that God's people pray as Daniel did, or our nation may unravel morally and spiritually to the point of no return. I believe we desperately need the blessing of God.

Around 1998, I went through lots of pressures and struggles. My children got married within eight months of each other, my son was diagnosed with cancer and went through major surgery and radiation, my mother had five life-threatening hospitalizations where I stayed with her, my husband's dental office burned to the ground.

Communication with God is vital to a vibrant relationship with him. We will never really know God in an intimate, personal relationship if we don't talk to him. Half of our communication with God is listening to what he has to say through his Word, which is why reading our Bibles is so important. The other half of communication is talking to him, which is prayer. Prayer is also important because the Bible commands us to pray.