Fervent

Priscilla Shirer, a Christian author and speaker, presents a practical guide to what she calls serious, specific, and strategic prayer, framed as a woman's battle plan against spiritual forces. She structures the book around ten areas of life she believes a real spiritual enemy actively targets, offering readers a framework for crafting personalized, written prayer strategies to counter each attack. The book includes perforated tear-out pages designed for readers to compose their own prayers, post them in visible locations, and pray them regularly.

Shirer opens by arguing that prayer has remained ineffective for many believers because it functions as an afterthought or formality rather than a focused discipline. She contends that the enemy strategizes against believers' emotions, minds, families, and futures with intimate knowledge of each individual's vulnerabilities. Rather than offering a scholarly study, she positions the book as an action guide: Readers will target precise areas where the enemy is at work and ground their prayers in biblical truths.

The book's inspiration comes from Shirer's grandmother, Annie Eileen Cannings, a ninety-five-year-old woman who meets with God daily, writing prayer requests in a spiral notebook. When asked why she writes her prayers down, her grandmother answers: "So I won't forget" (11). Shirer frames this as the book's core message: Writing prayers ensures believers will not forget who the real enemy is, where their hope lies, what their true needs are, and how God has responded over time. Following her grandmother's example, Shirer writes and posts her own prayer strategies in her closet, where she sees them every time she gets dressed.

Before launching into the ten strategies, Shirer addresses two common extremes regarding Satan: overestimating his power, which leads to undue fear, or underestimating him, which leaves believers vulnerable. She clarifies his limitations: He is not omnipresent, not omniscient, cannot perform genuine miracles, and is running out of time. She then introduces the PRAY acrostic as a framework for crafting prayers: Praise (thanksgiving for who God is), Repentance (allowing prayer to expose resistance to God), Asking (making specific requests), and Yes (anchoring prayers in God's promises from Scripture). The ten strategies that follow, each forming its own chapter, were derived from polling a large cross section of women.

Strategy 1 addresses the enemy's attack on passion, the spiritual fire fueling fervent prayer. Drawing from 2 Kings 6:1–7, the account of a prophet's servant who loses an iron ax head in the Jordan River, Shirer argues that passion is a gift from God rather than something self-generated and that only a divine miracle can retrieve what has been lost, just as the prophet Elisha caused the sunken ax head to float. She distinguishes between Satan's condemnation, which leads to guilt and self-focus, and God's conviction, which encourages and points toward grace.

Strategy 2 addresses the enemy's attack on focus, arguing that Satan misdirects believers into fighting visible symptoms, such as difficult relationships or financial troubles, rather than the spiritual forces behind them. Centering the chapter on Ephesians 6:12, Shirer unpacks the spiritual armor described in Ephesians 6:14–17 and contends that prayer activates the entire ensemble.

Strategy 3 addresses the enemy's attack on identity by cataloging the spiritual blessings listed in Ephesians 1, including being chosen, adopted, redeemed, and sealed by the Holy Spirit. Shirer emphasizes that Paul prayed not that believers would receive these blessings but that they would realize they already possess them.

Strategy 4 addresses the enemy's attack on family. Drawing from Ephesians 5:22–33, Shirer argues that marriage represents the gospel in living form, mirroring Christ's love for the church, which is why the enemy targets it. She recounts how, during the summer she filmed a major faith-based movie about prayer, her own family experienced escalating disagreements and relational exhaustion that bore the marks of enemy strategy. She also shares a story about one of her sons who reported seeing a frightening figure in his room at night, accompanied by a sensation of paralysis. After Shirer prayed over him, commanded the spirit of fear to leave, and posted Scripture on the wall, the boy never mentioned the figure again. She addresses single women as well, urging them to begin praying now for a future spouse and children.

Strategy 5 addresses the enemy's use of guilt, shame, and regret over the past. Shirer shares a personal story about driving past a highway exit in Houston, Texas, that symbolized regrettable choices from her college years. As they passed the sign, she sensed God speaking clearly: The road was behind her, and He makes all things new. She argues that God exists outside of time, so forgiven failings are not reasons for shame but monuments to grace.

Strategy 6 addresses the enemy's use of fear to paralyze believers. Drawing from Moses at the Red Sea in Exodus 14, Shirer argues that fear is the antithesis of faith and that entertaining it risks causing believers to miss God's purposes. She tells the story of her close friend Shawna, a licensed counselor who broke down crying over fear of transitioning careers despite clear direction from God, and reports that Shawna eventually moved forward in obedience.

Strategy 7 addresses the enemy's attack on purity, analyzing Satan's temptation of Christ in Matthew 4 to demonstrate a strategy of precision, personalization, and persistence at moments of maximum vulnerability. Shirer argues that impurity weakens prayer and that purity and fervent prayer form a reinforcing cycle, each strengthening the other.

Strategy 8 addresses the enemy's attack through pressure and overloaded schedules, identifying three threads: pressure resembles slavery, recalling the Israelites' bondage in Egypt and the introduction of the Sabbath, a concept so foreign to a slave people that they initially went out to work on their mandated day off; pressure is driven by fear and insecurity tied to productivity; and pressure often masks idolatry, elevating reputation or achievement above devotion to God.

Strategy 9 addresses the enemy's weaponization of old wounds and unforgiveness. Drawing from 2 Corinthians 2:5–11, Shirer warns that failure to forgive results in being outwitted by Satan. She recounts how God convicted her to offer comfort to a friend whose critical response to Shirer's ministry successes had created emotional distance. After Shirer visited the woman with a meal, her own prayer life was restored. She argues that unforgiveness is a deliberate demonic design, and that while salvation cannot be severed by it, the believer's experiential freedom and intimacy with God are affected.

Strategy 10 addresses the enemy's attack on relationships among believers. Using the military concept of friendly fire, Shirer argues that division among Christians is almost always a sign of enemy activity. She traces a three-level theology of peace: peace with God, the peace of God, and peace with others, contending that the enemy is most desperate to prevent this third level because unified believers constitute a force that threatens his plans.

Shirer closes by recounting a formative experience: hesitantly walking into a home Bible study during a season of spiritual restlessness. For a solid hour, the group did nothing but pray. After twenty minutes of observing, tears came and waves of freedom surged through her spirit. At the meeting's end, the Bible teacher, a stranger who knew nothing about her, told her he sensed she would have the privilege of calling many people to prayer during her lifetime. She went home and wrote down every word. She urges readers to make prayer both lifeline and lifestyle and closes with Philippians 4:6–7, counseling readers to approach God boldly with every need, always wrapped in gratitude, and to expect fervency to lead to rest.