JACKSON, Miss. (BP) – A long-time friend of mine began to dredge up a couple of dumb, thoughtless remarks I had uttered years ago. Time had minimized their sharpness and given us a healthy perspective on them, and she did it in good humor.

NASHVILLE (BP) – Jeana and I were in our mid-thirties when she was diagnosed with cancer. Her diagnosis moved us to pursue God, and prayer was our first choice, not our last.

WASHINGTON, D.C. (BP) – At the 69th National Prayer Breakfast, President Joe Biden called for those watching online to lean on their faith and see others not as Democrats or Republicans but “fellow Americans, fellow human beings.”

CLEVELAND, Ga. (BP) – One of my top ten life-changing books is Andrew Murray’s classic "With Christ in the School of Prayer." First published in 1885, it has been continuously in print for the past 136 years. Murray was a Dutch Reformed pastor in South Africa whose preaching and writing was a catalyst for revival in his own country in the 1860s and the great revival that began in Wales in 1904 and reverberated throughout England and the United States.

RIO DE JANEIRO (BP) – It’s 6 p.m. and Fernando Brandão, executive director of the National Mission Board (JMN) of the Brazilian Baptist Convention, heads into the most important meeting of the day. This standing event occurs Monday through Friday for one hour, with the exception of the last Friday of every month, when six hours are blocked off. Brandão and the JMN team are there to pray.

NASHVILLE (BP) – As Christians, we have a responsibility to pray for the leaders of our nation. Regardless of the president's political party or positions on various issues, I have been faithful to pray for each president and vice president for decades. Our first and highest allegiance is always to the lordship of Jesus Christ and then to the words He gives us in the Bible, the Word of the living God, regarding how to live.

CARTERSVILLE, Ga. (BP) – I began to follow Christ when I was a teen. I was in a family that did not go to church. My mom did not attend, and neither did my brothers and sisters. My parents divorced when I was very young, and my dad lived on the other side of the country. He did not go to church either.

BLACKSHEAR, Ga. (BP) – Georgia resident Kim Strickland describes it as the hardest thing she's ever done – maintaining a bipartisan focus in the year-long 365-Plus Prayer Project she birthed while simultaneously supporting individual political candidates.

NASHVILLE (BP) – The original goal of the secularization of America was to see religion become nonexistent in our nation. This has not happened. However, religion has been neutralized to such a point that often it is silenced. It is evident there are leaders at every level of government across American life who no longer believe or even categorize religion as essential.

JACKSON, Tenn. (BP) – One key way to be involved in the advance of the Kingdom of God is to pray for pastors. This is always the case, but it is even more significant at this time. As the last six months or so have disrupted life for all of us, a host of challenges have arisen for pastors.