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“[Evangelist Rodney Smith’s] secret was revealed to a delegation of revival seekers, who asked him how God could [also] use them . . . Without hesitation, [he] said, “Go home. Lock yourself in your room. Kneel down in the middle of the floor, and with a piece of chalk draw a circle around yourself. There, on your knees, pray fervently and brokenly that God would start a revival within that chalk circle.”

“[Evangelist Rodney Smith’s] secret was revealed to a delegation of revival seekers, who asked him how God could [also] use them . . . Without hesitation, [he] said, “Go home. Lock yourself in your room. Kneel down in the middle of the floor, and with a piece of chalk draw a circle around yourself. There, on your knees, pray fervently and brokenly that God would start a revival within that chalk circle.”

“In the words of theologian Walter Wink, ‘History belongs to the intercessors.’”

“You have collected all my tears in your bottle. . .Each & every teardrop is precious to God. They are eternal keepsakes. The day will come when He wipes away every tear in heaven. Until then, God will move heaven & earth to honor every tear that has been shed. Not a single tear is lost on God. He remembers each one. He honors each one. He collects each one. . .[and] in much the same way…God collects our prayers.”

“. . . God is for you. I can’t promise that God will always give you the answer you want. I can’t promise that He’ll answer on your timeline. But I can promise this: He answers every prayer, and He keeps every promise. that is who He is. That is what He does. And if you have the faith to dream big, pray hard, and think long, there is nothing God loves more than proving His faithfulness.”

"The sad truth is that most people spend more time planning their summer vacation than they do planning the rest of their life. That's poor stewardship of right-brain imagination. Goal setting is good stewardship. Instead of letting things happen, goals help us make things happen. Instead of living by default, goals help us live by design."

". . . if you keep trying, you are not failing. The only way you can fail is if you quit trying. If you're still trying, even if you're failing, you're succeeding. God is honored when you don't give up. God is honored when you keep trying. God is honored when you keep circling. . . In every spiritual journey, there are setbacks. And if you listen to the accuser of the brethren, you'll feel like a failure."

"Destiny is not a mystery. For better or for worse, your destiny is the result of your daily decisions and defining decisions. . . We only make a few defining decisions in life, and then we spend the rest of our lives managing them. Maybe you've made some bad decisions that have gotten you to where you don't want to be. The good news is that you're only one defining decision away from a totally different life."

". . . the lawyers at International Justice Mission know how to work like it depends on them, but they also know how to pray like it depends on God. This is a lethal combination when it comes to fighting injustice. If you're willing to dream big and pray hard and think long, you might just bring kings to their knees and shut the mouths of lions."

"It's not enough to dream big and pray hard. You have to think long. If you don't, you'll experience high degrees of discouragement. Why? Because we tend to overestimate what we can accomplish in a year . . . The bigger the vision the harder you'll have to pray and the longer you'll have to think. But if you keep circling, it'll come to pass in God's time."

"One dimension of thinking long is *thinking different,* and prayer is the key to both. Prayer doesn't just change circumstances; more important, it changes *us.* It doesn't just alter external realities; it alters internal realities so that we see with spiritual eyes. It gives us peripheral vision. It corrects our nearsightedness. It enables us to see beyond our circumstances, beyond ourselves, beyond time."

"We want things to happen at the speed of light instead of the speed of a seed planted in the ground. We want our dreams to become reality overnight. We want our prayers answered immediately, if not sooner. But the key to dreaming big and praying hard is *thinking long.* Instead of thinking in terms of time, we must think in terms of eternity."

"Each prayer is like a seed that gets planted in the ground. It disappears for a season, but it eventually bears fruit that blesses future generations. In fact, our prayers bear fruit forever. Even when we die, our prayers don't. Each prayer takes on a life, an eternal life, of its own . . . Prayer is the inheritance we receive and the legacy we leave."

"The Israelites are sitting ducks, and God is the one who led them to this place. It seems like a tactical error, doesn't it? . . . God sets up camp where there is no means of retreat. I think it reveals something about His mysterious maneuverings. Sometimes God leads us to a place where we have nowhere to turn but to Him; our only option is to trust Him."

"And that's the way it works: God closes doors in order to open bigger and better doors . . . It's a package deal. You can't pray for open doors if you aren't willing to accept closed doors, because one leads to the other."

". . . the divine detours often get us where God wants us to go . . . The real miracle is a God who loves us enough to get in the way when we're going the wrong way. These are the miracles we don't want, but these are the miracles we need . . . What seems like an unanswered prayer means that God has a better answer."

"I've learned a valuable lesson about unanswered prayer: *Sometimes God gets in the way to show us the way.*"

"Some of the hardest moments in life are when you've prayed hard but the answer is no and you don't know why. And you may never know why. But that is the litmus test of trust. Do you trust that God is for you even when He doesn't give you what you asked for? Do you trust that He has reasons beyond your reasons? Do you trust that His plan is better than yours?"

". . . my anger turned to mourning, and then my mourning turn to begging. I remember weeping in prayer and begging God . . . I knew He could do it, but for reasons unknown to me, He chose not to . . . It was a bitter disappointment. And I still don't know why."

". . . some of God's greatest answers to prayer won't be revealed on this side of the space-time continuum because they are invisible answers. When God makes something happen, we can thank Him because we can see it. When God keeps something from happening, we don't know how to thank Him because we don't know what He did. But someday God will reveal the invisible answers . . ."

"And while reading as reactive, prayer is proactive. . . As you pray, the Holy Spirit will quicken certain promises to your spirit. It's very difficult to predict what and when and where and how, but overtime, the promises of God will become *your* promises. Then you need to circle those promises, both figuratively and literally."

"Prayer was never meant to be a monologue; it was meant to be a dialogue. Think of Scripture as God's part of the script; prayer is our part. Scripture is God's way of initiating a conversation; prayer is our response. The paradigm shift happens when you realize that the Bible wasn't meant to be *read through*; the Bible was meant to be *prayed through.* . . . The Bible is a promise book and a prayer book."

"Our most powerful prayers are hyperlinked to the promises of God. When you know you are praying the promises of God, you can pray with holy confidence. It's the difference between praying on thin nice and praying on solid ground. It's the difference between praying tentatively and praying tenaciously. You don't have to second-guess yourself because you know that God wants you to double click on his promises."

Part 2/2: "Second-degree faith is resurrection faith. It's a faith that refuses to put periods at the end of disappointments. It's a faith that believes that God can reverse the irreversible. It's a faith that believes it's not over until God says it's over."