“One day, I had the strong impression that Satan was in the room,” a friend said. “The scripture came to me that Jesus said of himself, ‘The ruler of this world is coming, and he has nothing in Me’ (John 14:30).” The Amplified Bible explains this verse by adding, “there is nothing in Me that belongs to him, he has no power over Me.”

For nearly a week one summer many years ago, my family was out of town or otherwise away from home at meal times. What a splendid time I had being out of the kitchen! I found myself at McDonald’s once and sometimes even twice a day. After about four days of cheeseburgers and McNuggets, however, I began craving some real food—even if I had to cook.

Has Satan ever told you, “You’ve failed, so God isn’t interested in helping you”? In the story of the Gibeonite deception in Joshua 9:3-15, Joshua failed to seek God’s guidance, and he and his men impulsively signed the treaty with the Gibeonites. Still, Joshua did not despair.

Phoebe Palmer, an evangelist in the 19th century, believed that the loving care she gave her family was as ordained of God as her teaching ministries. Because God wanted her to be a housewife, she did her work joyfully often singing as she worked, “Every work I do below, I do it to the Lord.”

Deadline for a book I was writing was looming, and despite my faithfully writing, it seemed I could not pull together my random thoughts. One day nearly overcome with discouragement, I walked into the guest room, looked at an open Bible, and read, “Make this valley full of ditches” (2 Kings 3:16). My first thought was, This doesn’t apply to my situation.

One of the most tender names God used for Himself was El Shaddai. Although El Shaddai is often translated “God Almighty,” that is an inadequate translation and misses much of its beauty. The almightiness of God is expressed in El, a short form of Elohim, which means “the Mighty One.” But what does Shaddai mean?

When Evelyn Christensen was first selected to be the North American Chair for the A.D. 2000 (a national prayer movement), she had no clue how to lead the program. She gathered sixty women’s leaders and announced, “I don’t know if what we are doing is right, and if it is, if we are the ones to do it. We are going to get on our knees and pray. I don’t want anyone to lead in prayer until God tells you what to pray.”