[Book Review]- Fervent: A Woman’s Battle Plan for Serious, Specific, and Strategic Prayer

Ephesian 6:12 states “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places” (KJV). Our enemy is unseen and we face spiritual attacks meant to separate us from God. Fervent by Priscilla Shirer is a book about how to have a specific strategic prayer life to face those attacks. To accomplish this Shirer teaches the importance of planning out your prayers in advance and writing them down. Of course every prayer you pray doesn’t have to be written down, there is absolutely room for spontaneous prayer, but when your facing a personal battle, dealing with your friends and family, Shirer shares the most effective way to pray is strategically. Once you plan out and write down your prayers, they are there to pray when you need them.

Who is This Book For?

Even though the title of this book refers to “a woman’s battle plan” there really is nothing in this book specific to women. Anyone male or female can take the strategies in this book and apply them to their prayer life. It’s essentially for people who want to improve the effectiveness of their prayers.

What’s Included?

Shirer lays out 10 strategies to address circumstances in your life as well as areas where we have allowed the enemy to distract us from praying with faith and power. The first strategy discusses how to regain your focus. Our enemy is not the co-worker who is mean and nasty and gossips behind our back. Our real enemy is Satan and he seeks to cause us to stumble and fall and forget who we are. In addition, to regaining focus, the book includes using strategic prayer to deal with our past, family, relationships and more.

How has it Helped Me?

For me, the most significant information in this book has been how to infuse scripture into my prayers. As I write my prayers down, I search for applicable scriptures to include in my prayers. This practice has energized me. It’s more than just memorizing scripture, it’s using the truth that is His word to talk to God. This might be a weird thing to say, but it’s almost as if it’s legitimized my prayer. Being specific, using scripture to praise Him, thank Him, ask for forgiveness, ask for what I want makes me feel closer to Him as I’m praying. It’s also helping me to get more and more into the bible and seeing what God has for me. It’s helped for times that I don’t know what to pray for. I know I have a need, but what is it or how to put it into words can be difficult. When you don’t know what to pray for, look at what the people of the bible have prayed. Paul’s prayers have been a good frame of reference for me.

It’s Your Turn

Have you read this book? How did it help or not help your prayer life?