I’ll be honest. Prayer doesn’t come easy for me. It’s not that I don’t know I should pray. It’s that, deep down, I don’t always believe it works the way God says it does. Because if I truly believed prayer made a real difference, I wouldn’t treat it like an afterthought. I’d bring everything to [...]
There are moments when life grows quiet—not peaceful, but heavy. The kind of silence that presses against your chest and makes you wonder if you’ve been forgotten. Prayers seem to rise only to fall back unheard. Strength feels like a distant memory. And yet… it is here, in this very place, that something sacred begins. [...]
Barry Arnold (now retired) pastor of Cornerstone Church in Gresham, Oregon. Many years ago, he sent an email to his church regarding prayer. It’s worth reading: I think our prayers are unbalanced—in the direction of just physical needs. We can and should pray for people with infirmities—but it might be wise to change the emphasis [...]
How often have you felt that your prayers were hitting a glass ceiling — as though the Lord were saying no? Maybe it is because you were praying outside of His will. Maybe it's because you were praying for something that God didn't want you to have. We need to remember the promise Jesus spoke [...]
I recently decided to get away alone for a few days to enjoy some quiet time and do a little writing. Because I like warm weather, I went to the beach. One day while I was walking along the sand, I stopped and watched the waves roll in and out. In that moment, several thoughts [...]
Do you want to know how to take your life to the next level? Want everything in your life to change? Want to experience a closer relationship with God? Let me introduce you to what I think is the most dangerous prayer in Scripture: Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know [...]
I tend to make everything all about me. I don’t mean to, it just happens. Never have I been as aware of this as I was a couple of weeks ago when a speaker at a conference I attended said, “God is saying to you, I MISS YOU!” It was only three words but they were [...]
One of my favorite quotes is from Albert Einstein: “Out of complexity find simplicity.” I love this quote because we live in a world that has become so complex. But even in the midst of complexity, ironically, people are hungry for simplicity. Simple ideas are changing the world. We are all familiar with the company [...]
"There are times in most 0f our lives when we wonder if God hears our prayers. Here's a reminder that God does hear and knows exactly what we need." You pull up to a drive-thru window, place your order, pull around to pay and after driving off, you discover that what’s in the bag isn’t [...]
In his book Draw the Circle: The 40 Day Prayer Challenge, author Mark Batterson tells an inspiring story about a group of Mississippi farmers who gathered fifty years ago to pray for rain. When a drought threatened to destroy a season of crops, a rural church with many farmers in the congregation called for an [...]
