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Show Notes:

Welcome to the Nancy Ray Book Club, where once a month I share a summary of a book worth reading and my top 3 takeaways from that book. Many of you have joined my 2021 book club and are reading along with me this year, but if you haven't that's okay. It's very low pressure. We would still love to have you for all 12 books or maybe just one or two. You can learn more about it here.

I decided to start off 2021 with my friend Chrystal Evans’ new book called The 28 Day Prayer Journey after experiencing all of 2020. After my talk with Chrystal back in Episode 080 (which was fantastic, you should go back and listen to it), I just knew in my heart, this was the way I wanted to start off this year, and I am so grateful I did.

For the full episode, hit play above or read through it below!

So since this is the first book for my 2021 book club, and since you might still be on the fence about joining, or maybe this is the first time you've heard about it, I figured I would just briefly share a little bit about my book club and the lineup of 12 books that I've chosen for this year.

So you can be thinking about whether or not you would like to join in on this book I'm talking about today, The 28 Day Prayer Journey by Chrystal Evans. Hers was the book I chose for January. So while we wrapped it up, I will say it's a very easy book to really read and kind of implement and pray through any month of this year, and I highly recommend doing that. It was excellent. Okay.

So, in February we will be reading Booker T Washington's autobiography, called Up From Slavery.

In March we are going to be reading, Sleep Smarter by Shawn Stevenson, a book all about sleep.

In April we'll be reading Atomic Habits by James Clear.

May is going to be the Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by John Mark Comer.

June is Parenting by Paul David Tripp.

July is The Gospel Comes with a House Key by Rosaria Butterfield. I believe I said that right?

August is Dirt by Mary Marantz.

September is Awakening Wonder by Sally Clarkson.

October is 4 Disciplines of Execution by Christmas Chesney and Sean Covey.

November is Fighting Forward by Hannah Brencher.

And December is The Revenge of Analog by David Sacks.

And there's a bonus book—I always just add on a bonus book—Sometimes I get to it sometimes I don't, but the bonus book this year is Living Out of the Overflow by Dr. Richard Blackaby.

So how it works is I choose one book a month. You can choose to read along with me, or if you just want the cliff notes, you can just listen to my podcast episode about it. And when I do record a podcast episode, I just share my 3 takeaways.

Sometimes I'll have the author on and we'll interview the author and go more in depth about the book, sometimes I don't. And I will say this, I try to choose books that are pretty well-rounded a lot that have to do with, of course, the season in my life.

They almost always come because a friend or trusted person recommended it to me. Occasionally I'll choose something that I find that sounds really interesting. Like, The Revenge of Analog sounded really interesting, but I had never heard of it before. And I just, I honestly keep a long running list of books in my phone, and then before the year begins, I sift through them and sort through and kind of pray through which ones I want to read. And I try to make it a pretty well-rounded list.

So this one has some parenting things, some Christian, faith-centered subjects, some physical health things like Sleeping Smarter, and then of course, some work-focused things. I think Atomic Habits really just applies to everything in our lives, but 4 Disciplines of Execution is more of a business book. So it's just a well-rounded list, and I like that, and that’s kind of how I go about choosing the books.

I will say this, if you listen to the last episode, you found out that we are expecting our fourth baby, this July, and usually the years that we are having a baby, I cut my reading list in half. I get it down to like six books because that's realistic for me with a newborn in three other small kids, but this year I'm going for it. I am keeping all 12 books plus a bonus book. And I am just going to try to really double up before this baby comes and record all the podcast episodes beforehand so that I can just have some flex time when I'm sleep deprived.

So anyway, just wanted to kind of give that overview and invite you into the book club and just explain how it works if you weren't sure what we were reading or how it works. We would love to have you.

So let's dive into my three takeaways from The 28 Day Prayer Journey.

Takeaway #1

My first takeaway is that I have really, in my prayer life, been very self-focused. And what I loved about this book is it helped me to look outward way more often on a regular basis and pray for others more. So I love what Chrystal’s done in the book. She kind of lays out the days of the week to focus on different things, and then it starts over again every week. But every Friday, Saturday and Sunday, you pray for your family and friends. And then Saturday, you usually have like a Saturday challenge and Sunday is Sabbath prayer.

But what I found was a lot of times she would challenge you to pray for your community or pray for those around you or pray for your neighbor on Saturday. And then Sunday is really focused to pray for those in ministry and what this did for me, it made me realize how little I pray for the people around me. And when I started to pray for like my actual next door neighbors, I realized, I thought about them a little bit more and I cared for them more. And my heart was just kind of turned towards them more. And it was crazy because I was challenged to pray for my actual neighbors on Saturday.

And then that following day, I learned that they had come down with COVID. I was texting her and we were able to drop soup off for them, continue to pray for them and love them in a way that felt more invested than if I had just heard they had got COVID, you know, through the grapevine or if she texts me and told me, I just really was conscious about what they were going through and was really wanting to be there for them.

And then that following Sunday, you know, our challenge was to pray for those in ministry. And I think it was the next Sunday after that, or maybe a couple Sundays later, I learned that my pastor had recently gotten a death threat for some of the things that he had said and church and some of the stances he had taken. And I mean, just that, that's why my first takeaway is that I realize I've been so self-focused because usually I just pray for myself or, you know, for me to be a good mom and stay sane with the kids throughout the day or my hopes and dreams or the things that are on my heart and for my family and those things aren't bad.

But I realized it really has kind of shifted my outlook outward, and that is a good thing. And as believers, that's where our I should be anyway is on the people who need us and on the loss. And yeah, so it just made me realize how self-focused I've been in prayer. And that was just a really healthy, good step for me.

Takeaway #2

My second big takeaway is that it really helped me pray throughout my day.

So every day you have a morning section and afternoon section and an evening section. And when Chrystal and I had our podcast interview back in Episode 80, she said that she hoped that women would take this book and put it in their purse and carried it around with them throughout their day that they would write in it that they would open it up instead of looking at their phone and they would interact with it a lot, and I loved this and that's when the big reasons why I chose for it to be the first book that I really dug into this year is because I wanted a guide to bring me closer to the Lord on a regular basis.

And that's exactly what this book did. Now, I didn't do this all the time. I didn't do it perfectly. I did not take this book everywhere with me, but knowing it was there and having a guide for my prayers morning, afternoon, and evening, it was so helpful for me because on the days that I was home and was able to do that, I felt so much closer to the Lord. I was able to be honest with him and really share and abide—which is the goal—abide with him throughout my days.

So I loved that this book really helped me learn to form the habit of praying throughout my day.

Takeaway #3

Now the third takeaway is that this book, this text, the devotions that she challenged us with with the thoughts that she gave us, it reminded me every week that repentance and submission and yielding and surrendering to the Lord, it’s not just a one-time thing for a believer, but it should be a regular thing.

We should always be analyzing our hearts and repenting. I mean, it should be a weekly or daily thing where we continually give our lives over to the Lord, submit ourselves to Him, yield to Him and ask for the infilling power of the Holy Spirit every day. And as I did those things on a regular basis, I also became more confident and bold to ask him for what I want. And so I think what I realized is when I just go a long time with just asking him for what I want and never really connecting with him often and really laying my life down before him over and over again, I start to not ask him for everything. Cause then I start to feel bad and it's just a sign that things are not balanced in my walk with Him—that I’m not really giving him every single area of my life and truly surrendering to him.

But once I started doing that, you know, when it got to the “Ask” day of the week, which I think was on Wednesdays, where you ask the Lord what you want from Him and what you want in life. I wasn't afraid to put it all out there.

I love this quote from Chrystal in her book, she says:

“Don't be shy. Talk to God about all of it. Often, as soon as a need, a concern, a decision, an emotion, or a hard circumstance arises, let it remind you to chat with him. You are not bothering him. He likes to hear from you. He knows your heart anyway.”

Right? I loved those words and I needed to hear them. And just reading that gave me permission and encouragement, once again, to know that God is a loving Father who wants to know my heart, He wants to know my dreams and He wants to involve me and the greater church in the people around me, in my friends and my neighbors and my community in ministry.

He wants me to look outward, but He also wants me to be honest inward.

So those are my three big takeaways from the book that I have been too self-focused and I need to look outward. It helps me pray throughout the day. And it reminded me that yielding and repentant submission is not a one-time thing, but should happen often. And when that does happen, it makes me more confident in every area of prayer.

Friend, it is 2021. We're here. It's a new year, thank goodness, but it's also still hard in a lot of ways. Here we are. We're in February already. It's crazy, and if there's anything I can encourage you with a way to spend your time to make the most of this year, it would be to grab this book and read it and walk through it and work on your prayer life.

It's to embrace a prayer life that's constant, vibrant, honest, and interactive with our very real and living God. This book did that for me. And I hope that if you read it with me, that it did that for you too. Now you may have noticed I'm taking a break at the end of every episode from talking about the Cornerstore right now. I’m in the middle of the Contentment Challenge and many of you are doing it with me, which means for not shopping for the first three months of the year. So I just figured it'd be best and most respectful to not really talk about all these things that you could buy.

But I did want to let you know that if you had to my Cornerstore, which is my Amazon affiliate store, all of my 2021 books are going to be listed there for you. And they'll be listed there through the year. Also, you can always go to the Nancy Ray Library, which is a great way to find my entire library of books that I've read and recommend through the years.

They also just wanted to give you a heads up. I have already started reading Booker T Washington's autobiography called Up from Slavery. All I can say is you have got to read this book with me. This is—it’s incredible—I cannot tell you how much I respect this man. I can't. I mean his life, I really believe every single American needs to read this book. His life is incredibly inspiring. It is a story of overcoming such incredible hardships. I mean, he was born as a slave, as a little boy did not know his own birthday, did not know his dad, and he built such an incredible life for himself and so many others. I mean, I just highly recommend it. So usually I don't read ahead, but like I said, I'm trying to do this for baby, so I'm trying to give you a preview. This book is so good. I hope you join me for this book for the month of February: Up From Slavery. It's really, really good.

I’m going to lose with 1 Thessalonians 5:17. The Passion translation says,