When a Salvation Army preacher was struck by a half-drunk man, he fell and struck his head against the curb with such force that everyone thought he was dead. He struggled to his feet, looked at the man who had struck him, and said, “God bless you,” and resumed his address.

Why did you stop praying for me?” Lois asked her friend.

How did Lois know the friend had pulled her card from her prayer file just a month ago and marked it “obsolete”? She had been praying for Lois for three years with no sign of results. They would occasionally exchange good-humored opinions on whether Lois’s church was “Christian” or “Science.”

When God tenderly called, “Adam, where are you?” (Genesis 3:9), I don’t think He used the tone of a detective looking for a criminal. A. B. Simpson, in his commentary on Genesis, suggests His call was the cry of a father seeking his lost son.

“Our family went through a traumatic experience that left us crushed and broken,” shared Faith. “During this time of suffering and heartache, God gave me some promises that sustained me throughout the weeks and months of readjusting our lives to the changes we went through.

“If you won’t sign for me to get married, then I’ll get married as soon as I turn 18,” Grace’s defiant daughter Carrie shouted. The weight of their daughter’s rebellion crushed her parent’s hearts.

A friend told me that in the midst of a time family trauma, she began to pray desperately. She said, “Lord, I really want to see You work; I really want to see You move in this situation.”

According to Evelyn Christenson, prisoners who accept Christ while incarcerated often pray, “God, get me out of this hell-hole.” If God doesn’t, their response to his refusal is, “If that’s the kind of God I’m serving now, I don’t want anything to do with Him any more. He let me down.”

Words from an old song came to me recently: “You must fight if you would win.” It’s not only soldiers on the battlefield who must fight. A spiritual battle is going on for each one we care about, and the battle will be lost unless we fight. One of those ways to fight is to fast—desiring God more than food.