Gina R. Prince is an apostle of the gospel of Jesus Christ. She has a podcast show called The Keys Against the Enemy on . Connect with Gina on Instagram and Twitter @ginarprince as well as Facebook at “The Keys Against the Enemy.” Visit her website at .

There are points in a spiritual battle when it looks as though the enemy has had the final word. It looks like you will not make it. He’s laughing at you. People you thought were friends and loved ones are laughing too. Coworkers and neighbors are saying, “I thought you were saved. I thought you went to church. I thought you went to that prophetic church. I thought you prophesied. How can I be doing better than you?” They’re smoking $100 Cuban cigars, and you’re trying to scrape together enough money for bus fare. Tell them, “Don’t worry. Hold on. It’s not over yet. You go ahead and talk, laugh and think you have it made. Just wait, because I know God is about to do something in my life.”

People may think that your holy living is a waste of time. They may question where your God is. But what they don’t know—and you may not readily discern it either—is that you as a covenant believer will only be drawn in closer to God as a result of their mocking and torment. What they don’t understand—and you may be coming into this revelation right now—is that they are driving you to pursue even harder all that God has for you. Torment and oppression and your all-out hunger for the power of God to manifest in your life will drive you to a place of weeping, crying and desperation. We see this with Hannah (see 1 Sam. 1:1-20).

It wouldn’t seem to make sense from a natural perspective, but sometimes your lowest place is your best place. When it looks as if nobody cares, nobody tries to help you, nobody looks out for you and it’s just you and God, that is sometimes one of the best places to be. When everything and everyone is out of the picture and it is just you and God, this is the place where He can give you your Samuel. This is the moment when He can release to you not just a son, but a Samuel. Your prayers will be heard, and the answer you receive will be of such supernatural proportions that it will exceed your every imagination. You will get to the point where you surrender and say: Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly beyond all that we ask or imagine (Eph. 3:20).

God is saying, “You are praying for one thing that is within your level of understanding, but I’m about to release something greater in your life, something prophetic that will not only affect you now, but will go out and affect your generation and those to come.”

God allows some of the hardships we face to drive up the intensity of our pursuit, the intensity of our prayers, and the level of our faith and expectancy. God raises these levels because He wants to bring something out of us we never dreamed possible. Depending on people to be there for us when only God can make the difference will never work. There are some things man cannot do for us, and coming to this realization teaches us how to trust God. It teaches us how to draw near to Him.

This is the place of desperation I believe Hannah had come to, the place where her prayers no longer had words, the place where she was willing to do anything to receive what she needed from God. It is important that we dig deep into her process and examine the place of desperation she had come to and what was released into her life. Sometimes we just want answers to our problems or relief from our low place, but we don’t want to go through what it takes to build the spiritual strength and maturity necessary to carry and then steward what we’ve prayed for.

This woman had no children, and she wanted a child more than anything. She kept praying and praying, and nothing changed. And this other woman kept mocking and mocking, and nothing changed. Hannah was shamed and ashamed. She felt hopeless, and then she became desperate. I believe this is when desperation becomes your friend.

No one likes to be desperate, but it seems as if God looks upon desperate people. The woman in Luke 8:43-48 with an issue of blood was desperate. She was bleeding, which according to Jewish law meant that she was unclean. Year after year, she had dealt with shame and rejection because of her condition. She was labeled and shunned by the community. She had no business being in a crowd, but she was so desperate after 12 years of hemorrhaging that she pressed through the crowd, touched the hem of Jesus’ garment and was healed. Because of the low place she had been reduced to, she developed a strong desire to remain in that place no longer. She got desperate and made a move that placed her at the feet of Jesus.

The woman’s desperation forced her out of hiding, and she was met with compassion and healing. She was released back into life with the peace of God imparted to her. No more wrestling with the rejection of unanswered prayer. No more shames. No more labeling. No more mocking. With her healing came more than she imagined.

Don’t let people who don’t know your story stop you from going after what you know God has promised. Imagine if Hannah would have listened to Peninnah and just given up, thinking it wasn’t the will of God for her to have a child. What if she thought that was just the way things had to be, her waking up each day to affliction and mocking?

But God sees and hears, and when you call upon His name in your desperation, He will not turn away from you. He will not try to divert your attention to something else. He will not say that you have gone overboard or that you are overreacting. God will honor His promise to you.

Adapted from Desperate Prayers for Desperate Times by John Eckhardt, copyright 2018, published by Charisma House. This book will help you pray the desperate prayers you need to obtain the promises God has given you. To order your copy, click on this link.

Prayer Power for the Week Beginning Feb. 2, 2020

This week, increase your faith by reviewing the Scriptures showing God’s answers to the desperate prayers of His people. Thank Him that what He did for others and will do for you, according to His plan and purpose for you. Continue to pray for an outpouring of His Spirit in our nation and around the world, for our leaders to have and heed godly wisdom when making national and global decisions, and for unity. Read: 2 Chronicles 7:14; Psalm 34:6, 145:18. {eoa}

—Loneliness/companionship.

—Lack/money.

—Lust/sex/touch/attention.

—People/opinions of you.

—Internet/social media/branding yourself/self-promotions.

—Feelings/emotions.

—Weariness/fatigue.

—Disappointments.

—Family/drama.

—Children misbehaving/procrastinating.

—Bills/struggle.

Gina R. Prince is an apostle of the gospel of Jesus Christ. She has a podcast show called The Keys Against the Enemy on . Connect with Gina on Instagram and Twitter @ginarprince as well as Facebook at “The Keys Against the Enemy.” Visit her website at .

“I am here to tell you that God can reverse your trauma,” says Dr. Barbara Lowe. And trauma is a topic she knows too well. Now a psychologist and the owner of a successful counseling practice, she was raised in a home filled with emotional and psychological abuse.

Lowe says on Dr. Barbara’s Whole Life Podcast on the Charisma Podcast Network, “My mom would sometimes wake me up hitting me and threaten to go commit suicide. She would kick me out on the street and have drunken rages. I went to live with my dad, thinking that might be better, but there was a lot of very inappropriate behavior from him. And we used to get high together. …There were a lot of scary things said and done around me that made me literally fear for my life, and for good reason.”

And Lowe’s trauma only compounded as she became an adult. “I went on poorly and went through a divorce. I’ve had a child die; my dad committed suicide,” she says. But today, she knows “God plus therapeutic methods work.” She is committed to helping women “shake off the enemy, where abuses, where traumas of the past have been holding them down.”

Women, Lowe says, are in deep need of healing. “Women have twice as much PTSD, twice as much anxiety and twice as much depression as men. One out of three women have been assaulted, molested or raped,” she says. “We have been through a lot, and these are American women. So how much worse [is it] if you go to third-world countries? So God is doing something about this; He is feeling the pain in His body.”

Lowe believes the Lord is pouring out a triple blessing for women in 2020. “In particular, He’s doing some things in women to heal us and to make room for us, to cause us to step out in a different kind of faith…” she says. “So I believe that whatever you put effort toward, in particular in this year of 2020, there’s going to be a triple anointing for increase upon it. God is moving in threes.”

To learn more about this triple anointing and how the Lord will heal women from trauma and move them into His plans for them, click here.

One minute, I was sitting in the green metal lawn chair in my uncle’s front yard, talking and laughing with my aunt while cousins and our children played hide and go seek.

The next minute I felt the collapse of the rounded legs as they slowly lowered me to the ground.

The World Holds Its Breath

Even though I’m sure the sight of a 430-pound woman sitting atop a pile of metal was funny, all laughter stopped. The world held its collective breath as my uncle jumped up to help me.

Being super morbidly obese, I always tried to blend into the wallpaper and not make more of a spectacle of myself than I already was.

This day, the proverbial cat was let out of the bag. I was fat, really fat. I broke lawn chairs like twigs. I couldn’t be trusted to sit anywhere.

My uncle brought me a sturdy dining room chair, which I eyed suspiciously. My aunt patted my arm and told me it was fine. She never liked that old chair anyway.

My Shame

I was embarrassed and ashamed for the rest of the day. I didn’t dare eat the three platefuls I would have normally eaten at lunch. I took only one piece of cake, though I’d love to have piled my plate with the four other desserts as well.

I knew I had a problem. I denied it constantly. I tried to push my shame and guilt under the rug, but this day, I could not ignore the obvious.

I was a really good Christian. I had never tasted an alcoholic beverage except that one time a “friend” put a little vodka in my orange juice just so I couldn’t say I’d never drank alcohol before. I had never done drugs, smoked cigarettes, had sex before marriage, gone to an X-rated movie, or watched or listened to pornography. I went to church every Sunday. I taught Sunday school and small groups. I worked in ministry. And I was a glutton.

Pastors don’t talk about such things because they like their sweets and breads as much as I did. Mine was the acceptable sin I didn’t have to worry about.

Until I began to break chairs, and the cardiac surgeon told me my body was too big for my heart, and I would be dead in five years if I didn’t lose a minimum of 100 pounds and keep it off.

God’s Plan for Me

This was my life 20 years ago. Today, I’ve lost more than 250 pounds.

For years when I would pray about my weight issue, God would give me a plan. Stop eating sugar. Eat more lean meat, vegetables and fruit. Stop eating so much bread.

I could never get past step one. I thought I would die without sugar. Truth is, I was dying with sugar.

The light-bulb moment came when I was listening to a former alcoholic tell his story. He mentioned that alcohol is liquid sugar. Then it hit me: If an alcoholic can get free by not drinking alcohol, maybe I can get free by not eating sugar.

All my life I had wished my problem was alcohol instead of food. My reasoning was an alcoholic could stop drinking alcohol because it is not necessary to survival. However, I can’t stop eating because I have to eat to survive.

I Am A Sugar Addict

Understanding that processed sugar is my enemy gave me the final motivation to follow what God had been telling me for 30 years. So I did. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt I was a sugar addict. There wasn’t a question in my mind.

There also was not a question as to whether this was God’s direction. As I looked back through my journals, I saw the same plan. God had given it to me at least five times in three decades. I had heard God. I just hadn’t followed Him.

When I began to walk out what I knew was His plan, I felt His wind at my back propelling me forward to health and wholeness. It’s from this place I can minister. It’s from this place I can complete my assignment here on earth. It’s from this place I can live.

Although I have had situations where I have strayed, they are short-lived, and I always come back to what I know is right for me.

Real Freedom

In this place of obedience, there is freedom, real freedom. It’s not just flowery words. It is real honest-to-goodness, I-feel-it-down-in the-tips-of-my-toes freedom.

When I go to a family gathering today, I am not pulled toward the desserts. I eat fruit, vegetables, salad and meat. I make sure there are those choices because I bring them myself. Honestly, processed sugar is not something I want to eat today.

Overeating is a sin when we do it in direct rebellion to what God is leading us to do. It enslaves the same as any other lifestyle that is contrary to His best for us here on earth.

There was no greater sugar addict than I was. I never thought I could give it up. By myself I couldn’t, but with God’s help and the help of a coach and a group I was able to step into and discover real freedom from my addiction.

It’s the reason I write articles and books, deliver podcasts, speak and coach. My message is simple: Jesus brings freedom when we follow Him completely. There is nothing that tastes as good as the freedom that Christ brings. Nothing. {eoa}

Teresa Shields Parker is the author of five books and two study guides, including her latest, Sweet Journey to Transformation: Practical Steps to Lose Weight and Live Healthy, and her No. 1 bestseller, Sweet Grace: How I Lost 250 Pounds. She is also a blogger, spiritual weight loss coach (check out her coaching group, Overcomers Academy) and speaker at . Check out her new podcast, Sweet Grace for Your Journey.

This article originally appeared at .

“Who doesn’t want to be loved like that?” I Still Believe Producer Kevin Downes says his wife asked after watching the movie coming to theaters in March.

I Still Believe tells the story of up-and-coming Christian musician Jeremy Camp as he falls in love with a young woman named Melissa. Melissa, unfortunately, is diagnosed with cancer. The movie follows the young lovebirds’ journey and how they seek to honor the Lord with their story.

“To see how God just moved through the life of these two young people and you see all the music that kind of that came out of that, out of the pain and the journey that Jeremy went through when he was a younger man, and it’s just a beautiful love story,” Downes says. “I would probably take some tissues. Let’s just say I’ve seen it 200 or 300 times, obviously, ’cause I’m making the film, and there are certain scenes where I still cry after after watching it that many times. So it’s just that moving and it’s a good cry.”

Downes is no stranger to producing movies, with his name attached to titles like I Can Only Imagine, Moms’ Night Out and Woodlawn.

As I Still Believe enters advance ticket sales and plans to open on double the screens as I Can Only Imagine, Downes reflects on how his career path evolved.

“Twenty-six years ago, one of my best friends at the time—and still is today—David A.R. White, we had done a film that was a Christian film, and we were actors in it; we didn’t really know how to produce movies,” Downes says. “I can remember the two of us kind of sitting outside his apartment, you know, young 22-year-olds, going … ‘One day we’re going to be here and audiences are going to come and see our films in theaters.'”

Read the rest of this article at Movieguide®. Find out what God is doing in Hollywood!

Actress Jen Lilley, a devout Christian and co-host of the 2020 Movieguide® Awards, says each role she plays has something in common: She’s prayed and sought the Lord’s will for what project to take on.

“The truth is Jesus hung out with tax collectors and harlots,” Lilley said. “I’m open to doing roles that are maybe edgier, as long as there’s a redemptive message to them, which is why I played the role of Theresa on Days of Our Lives.“

The Days of Our Lives spot was initially not one Lilley was interested in, until she said the Lord spoke to her clearly about why that character mattered.

She said the Lord told her, “Somebody has to play that role, and I’d rather it be a Christian because you can play the unspoken moments when the guy leaves the room. You play the emptiness the girls actually feel where they’ve sold themselves short of their value. Those are the exact condition of humanity that I sent My Son to die for. You know, I died for broken people. I didn’t die for perfect people. And she’s not beyond redemption, and there’s no pits so deep that My love cannot find someone still.”

Lilley said those words still bring tears to her eyes, and that’s why she doesn’t necessarily pigeonhole herself into traditional wholesome roles, though those are definitely her favorite jobs.

“I do ask myself, Is it the role that You want me to play, God?” Lilley said. “I don’t necessarily only choose wholesome roles, but at the same time, I’m not going to do nudity. I’m not going to sell myself short as a daughter of the King.”

Read the rest of this article at Movieguide®. Find out what God is doing in Hollywood!

As with all living things, you need to rest. Sleeping is not the only kind of rest you need. Your digestive system and other organs need a rest from their work as well.

This understanding of the human need for rest is not new to mankind. God introduced the principle of a Sabbath rest to His ancient Jewish nation. It is one of the Ten Commandments (Ex. 20:8). Israel was given specific instructions regarding this divine command to work six days and to rest on the seventh day each week.

This principle of rest was important as well to their agricultural system. The Israelites were commanded to allow their fields to be fallow every seventh year to give the soil the rest it needed to reestablish its own mineral and nutrient content. (See Lev. 25:1-7).

Today a decreasing number of modern farmers are following this biblical agricultural principle of resting the soil. As a result, the soil has become depleted of some of the minerals and other nutrients that our bodies crave for health. And chemical fertilizers do not succeed in giving us the abundant mineral content of healthy soil.

It is interesting to note that in the animal kingdom, it is a natural habit to seek rest and to abstain from food especially when the animal is sick or injured. A sick animal refuses to eat and finds a place to rest where it can lap up water and be safe. Some animals hibernate, resting for an entire season without eating.

Rest is also a powerful principle of healing for the human body and psyche. Every night as you sleep, you are providing refreshing rest for your mind and body, which aids health in a tremendous way. Sleep deprivation is a commonly known form of torture, emphasizing the fact of our innate need for rest.

Fasting may be considered an internal rest for the body, allowing it to restore stamina and energy to vital organs by activating the marvelous self-cleaning system with which it is designed.

As a doctor, I have been able to look closely at the various popular methods of fasting. Some of them are good, while others can be downright dangerous.

Fasting is often thought of as taking nothing by mouth. Technically speaking, this is true, but it’s not the type of fasting I suggest for detoxification. I consider total fasting—not eating or drinking anything—very unsafe. Your body must receive at least two to three quarts of water a day to sustain your life, for you can live only a few days without water.

Although there are many ways to fast, the kind of fast that will bring about the optimum health benefits described in my book Fasting Zone is a partial fast. This type of fasting provides fantastic health benefits.

For example:

—Fasting gives a restorative rest to your digestive tract.

—Fasting helps the body’s designed healing processes to automatically work by giving them a chance to rest from other activities.

—This rest for “digestion as usual” in turn allows your overburdened liver to catch up with its task of detoxification.

—Your blood and lymphatic system also receive needed cleansing of toxic buildup through fasting.

—Fasting allows your other digestive organs, including the stomach, pancreas, intestines and gallbladder, a much-deserved rest, which allows your cells time to heal, repair and be strengthened.

A powerful, natural way to bring relief to your body from the burden of excess toxicity, fasting is also a safe way to heal and prevent degenerative diseases. As you can see from the list above, the primary way that fasting allows your body to heal is by giving it a rest. {eoa}

This article was adapted from Dr. Colbert’s Fasting Zone by Don Colbert, MD, copyright 2019, published by Siloam, Charisma Media/Charisma House Book Group. In this book, Dr. Colbert shows you how to “detoxify your body and rejuvenate your spirit.” You can learn how to master the 21-day meal plan that will help you increase your ability to lose weight, have a stronger immune system and improve your mental functioning. To order your copy, click on this link.

Prayer Power for the Week of Jan. 26, 2020

As you complete this first month of the new year, ask God to help you walk in optimum health—body and soul—by learning to live a fasted lifestyle, one which benefits mind, body, soul and spirit. Continue to pray for a global outpouring of His Holy Spirit, beginning with our own nation. Pray that believers would unite in prayer and purpose for our nation, its allies and the world. Pray for our leaders and the upcoming elections. Pray that righteousness would prevail in our midst. Read: 2 Chronicles 7:14. {eoa}

Jennifer Eivaz has personally experienced the presence of angels. And other believers can do the same, she says, through the spiritual gift of discerning of spirits. “You’re either going to see them, you will feel them or you will hear them when the Holy Spirit awakens your sense to discern their presence,” she says.

Trinity Broadcasting Network’s Brenda Crouch, wife of Paul Crouch Jr., is one of those who has clearly discerned an angel’s presence, Eivaz says on the Take 10 With Jenn podcast on the Charisma Podcast Network. “She grew up in Turlock [California], and she shared a story with me about how an angel protected her. She actually saw that angel, and she was a teenager,” Eivaz explains.

“Brenda made the cheerleading team, and she was invited to one of those cool parties; at least, she thought it was going to be a cool party. She thought it was a supervised party, and she went to the party, and it was neither of those,” Eivaz says. “It turned out the girl who was on the cheerleading team who invited everybody to the party … her mother was a practicing occultist. … And so her mother had taught the daughter how to do various incantations and seances and different things. And so this daughter, who was also on the cheerleading team, wanted everybody at the party to do these seances. …

“Brenda refused to participate. Brenda sat outside the circle that they had, and she began to pray quietly under her breath for God to shut this down and for God to protect her,” Eivaz says. “Well, at the moment she prayed, she saw an angel. She saw an angel wrap its wings around her and protect her.

“And then the girl who was conducting the séance got very upset and angry. She said, ‘Somebody is praying and stopping the spirits from speaking.’ And so Brenda learned by seeing that God will protect His own. God will send an angel.”

For more on the protective power of angels and how you can learn to distinguish them from evil spirits, click here. {eoa}