The Serenity Prayer God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. As the Twelve Step movement grows within the church, Christians in therapy and recovery voice a common confusion. Am I powerless over my behavior? If…
Pray for Joy
The Bible says in Nehemiah 8:10, Don’t be dejected and sad, for the joy of the Lord is your strength! It doesn’t say exercise is your strength, or hard work is your strength, or winning the lottery is your strength. It doesn’t even say joy is your strength. It’s the joy that comes from the…
Hedge of Protection… Prayer Can Be a Funny Thing
As a man of faith who spends most of his time traveling to churches, I have become more and more attuned to the irreplaceable value of prayer in one’s life. It is such a vital component of spiritual vitality. Since I grew up in church, I heard all kinds of different prayers all the time…
The Prayer of Release Brings Freedom from Blaming God
My husband and I have a friend who is gifted in many ways, but he has shut God out of his life, blaming Him for a car accident in which his sister was killed and he was injured severely enough to end his promising sports career. Years after that accident, he still bitterly questions why…
Prayer: Timeless Love
The scene of Jesus huddled in a locked room with a dozen friends, one of them a traitor, while outside temple guards and Roman legionnaires buckle on their swords and whips and torture devices, preparing for another dreary night’s work, stands as a tableau of human history. A hushed moment of foreboding, a heartfelt prayer,…
An American in Prayer: Kneel Before the King
The Greatest of Them All 1931 was a long and boring year. The stock market crash of 1929 plunged America into the depths of the Great Depression, and most businesses struggled to stay afloat. Among the struggling businessmen was a hotelier named Conrad Hilton. Americans weren’t traveling, and hotels were suffering. Hilton was borrowing money…
Faith May Move Mountains But Prayer Moves God
It’s been said that faith may move mountains, but prayer moves God. Amazing, isn’t it, that our prayers, whether grand and glorious or feeble and faint, can move the very heart of God who created the universe? To walk with God we must make it a practice to talk with God… Prayer moves God, and when God moves in…
Pick Me! Pick Me!
The Community of Amen God sets the lonely in families. — Psalm 68:6 I was driving down I-71, enjoying the sunshine and the quietness of my car. We had just moved back to the States after more than a dozen years away, and I was heading to a furniture outlet. The phone rang, and from…
Creating a Prayer Room at Work or Home
* Daniel had a specific place that he designated for prayer, which was an upstairs room in his home to which he withdrew three times every day (Daniel 6:10). We don’t know anything else about this room except that it had windows facing west. His preparations may have been as simple as setting aside this…
Spiritual Warfare Is Serious
When the messenger addressed Daniel, he instructed him to “consider carefully the words I am about to speak to you, and stand up” (10:11). In other words, Daniel needed to “listen-up.” And so do you and I. We need to pay attention, not only to God’s Word, but to this very serious aspect of prayer. We…