In your new book, Lord, Give Me A Heart For You, what made you choose to study the example of Paul?

When you go through 2 Corinthians you get a glimpse of Paul that no other epistle shows you. Paul bares his heart in this book. It is like God takes the veil and pulls it back and lets you see the inner man. You see the strong man, you see the exhortations, you see a man whose heart is broken. He has led these people to Christ. He has established this church, and now they're stabbing him in the back. Others have come in and convinced the people that Paul is not a true apostle, that his speech is contemptible, his appearance is unimpressive. They say that he doesn't act the way an apostle ought to act, he doesn't wield the authority that an apostle ought to wield.

In all of this, you see Paul's broken-heartedness and yet you see his perseverance. You see how important relationships are to him, because instead of saying, "Go away. I'm through with you. I did what I should and look at how you're treating me," instead Paul reaches out to these Christians who are living in carnality because they have been led astray by these false apostles.

In 2 Corinthians you see Paul despairing even of life, you see him saying, "I have fears within, and conflicts without." You see him talking about being cast down, but not forsaken. Paul is so very human, so very sensitive in this book, and you don't pick that up in the other letters he wrote. So many people today are weary, tired, discouraged, depressed, defeated, because they've been afflicted and they despair of life. They have been accused of not keeping their word. That is what they said of Paul, "You didn't keep your word, you said you were coming to us and you didn't show up." Paul's honesty has caused sorrow and the people missed the fact what he said what he did because he was compelled by love.

Isn't that where we are today? We had to be honest with someone, maybe a child who has walked away in rebellion or who's living a life of sin. When the child turns around and condemns us, we feel discouraged and wonder, "Should I have said that?" When you look at Paul you see so many situations that are current today. We're living in an age of fragmented, fractured relationships. People say, "I'm sorry," but they were only sorry that they were caught. There is a current theology that if you just believe in God, you can ask Him and He will make you wealthy, He will make you healthy, He will give you blessings. And yet Paul's blessings were really his afflictions. He said "I'll glory in my afflictions, in my persecutions, in my necessities, in my infirmities for when I'm weak, then I'm strong." That's when he really sees the power, the denumas of grace.

We think primarily of the grace that saves us. We don't think of grace as power for daily living that gets us through difficult situations. You see Paul with a thorn in his flesh and he's asking God three times to remove it. God responds, saying, "My grace is sufficient for you." Paul recounts God's response by saying, "For He has said to me ..." The phrase "has said" is in the perfect tense, indicating that it is an action complete in the past with a present and continuous result. In other words, God is saying, "I'm not going to take it away. You've asked me three times, don't ask Me again. My grace is sufficient for you, and my power will be perfected in your weakness." Paul doesn't walk away from God, he doesn't raise his fist in the face of God. Paul believes Him, and clings to God because he has a heart for Him. That's what I want. Because I want a heart for God, you know, I want a heart like Paul's and it is possible, because Paul said under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit "Be imitators of me even as I am of Christ Jesus," so here's a man that we can imitate, not that was perfect, but one even like Jesus, tempted and tested in all points as we are, you know, and that's Paul.

People often think of Paul -- who offered up prayers of thanksgiving while he was imprisoned -- as such an amazing man of strength. It almost seems diffciult to relate to him.

"Yes, and 2 Corinthians pulls back the veil and says, "See what I'm really like?" Our reaction is, "Whoa, you're like me! You've battled the same things that I'm battling!" In chapter one, Paul says, "I despaired of life, I thought I was going to die." Then, later, in chapter four he says, "We look not at the things which are seen but at the things which are not seen. The things we can see are temporal, but the things that are not seen are eternal."

2 Corinthians tells us that death is being absent from the body and present with the Lord. Paul says, "My ambition is, whether in this body or out of this body, to be pleasing to the Lord." Can you imagine what would happen in Christendom if that became the passion, if the heart of every single believer was to be pleasing to God?

While I was writing Lord, Give Me A Heart For You , I received a note from a woman named Charlotte that I included in the book. It was written on a sticky and said, "January 2001, now taking radiation treatments for the same old breast cancer showing in the brain. Pray for Bob, (Charlotte's husband). Thanks." An arrow pointed to the other side of the sticky note that says, "I read the end of the book. We win! Pray that it will be well done for God's glory, Love to all." And by the time the book came out, it had been done for God's glory. Charlotte was with the Lord. When I contacted her husband, he didn't even know she had written me that note. He says it must have been one of the last notes that she ever wrote. We need to know and understand that we win! We win because we're God's children. But when we win, we want to get a full reward, and so we want to run well. When we cross that finish line of victory, we are breaking that tape in glory.

Kay Arthur provided more advice about improving your personal relationship with God during our live chat. To read what she had to say, click here: Kay Arthur Chat Transcript.