080 - A Helpful Guide for Consistent Prayers with Chrystal Evans Hurst
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Our guest today is Chrystal Evans Hurst:
Chrystal Evans Hurst is an encourager who teaches people to love God, to love others, and to love themselves. Chrystal is a wife, mother of five and grandmother of two. She is also a speaker and the best-selling author of She’s Still There and Kingdom Woman and the newly released, The 28-Day Prayer Journey.
Resources from this episode:
Show Notes:
Today I'm talking with my friend, Chrystal Evans Hurst, and let me just say, this woman, I love her. She is a wife, a mama to five, a grandma of two. She's an encourager. She teaches people to love God, to love others, and to love themselves.
Today we talk about prayer—specifically a seven-day rhythm that you can set for yourself—if you maybe feel stuck in a rut with your prayers, or like she talks about in our conversation, if you want to activate the voice of the Holy Spirit in your life to be more real, and fresh, and conversational.
I feel like I just sat at the feet of a woman who I admire so much, who is a prayer warrior, and I got to learn from her, and I simply invite you to do the same today.
Click play above to listen in, or read through our conversation below!
Nancy: Chrystal, I am so grateful to have you on the Work and Play Podcast, what a joy it is to have you, thank you for being here.
Chrystal: Oh girl, thank you for having me. I'm grateful to be with you.
Nancy: Well, we met a few years ago when we both spoke at the Making Things Happen Conference, and I still very clearly remember your talk, it was so, so good. I love your heart, but I want to tell you about the real time I met you for the first time, which you ... I think you may remember, I don't know, and it actually isn't real, but it's real to me. I was in my bed late at night, nursing my baby boy, and I turned on Instagram Live because you were doing an Instagram Live about, I think parenting, or kids, or raising boys, I think that's ... I don't know. You talked about a lot of things.
Anyway, I asked a question about raising boys because the doctor, the whole time told me I was having a girl when we went in for the ultrasound, and here I was in the middle of the night, I mean, it wasn't the middle of the night, it was really late, I think you're on Instagram Live, and you started giving me all this advice because I asked in the question box, "Tell me about raising boys and what to expect." You told me they just forgive so easily, they're so loving, they bounce back really fast, and I still remember that, and I was like, "Man, I just love Chrystal." So that's my perspective of the start of our relationship, which is kind of funny because it's so, I don't know, 2020, like meeting online and getting connected through Instagram Live, but I just had to share that with you because I still remember you answering my question that night on Instagram Live.
Chrystal: You know what? That is so funny, because now that you're saying it, I totally remember that, and I did not remember that when I saw you in person at the Making Things Happen Conference. I got a chance to visit with you more there, but I didn't remember that, and now that you say that I'm like, "That is totally, totally cool."
Nancy: I just think it's so funny how we can feel so connected through Instagram in a world that ... I don't know, technology is really cool, social media has its positives and negatives, but that is a huge positive for me. I think it was a good reminder for me, that really some words of life that are spoken on a platform where you never see somebody maybe on the other side, they really matter, they really mean something. So anyway, just a fun story to start off our conversation, but I'm glad that I could connect the dots for you, and that you know that's the same person, but I would love to just start with sharing, with you sharing about who you are, your family, what you do for work, maybe what you do for play, just who is Chrystal.
Chrystal: Well, I am a mom, I'm a wife. I've been married 20 years. I have five kids. I have two grandkids, one on the way, and I'm a daughter of a pastor. Some of you all who are listening may have heard of him, my sister, his name is Dr. Tony Evans, and her name is Priscilla Shirer, so a lot of people have heard of them. So I've been around ministry and in church my whole life. I love ministry. I also love business, and I love my kids, so I live this crazy, wacky life of mixing the three together, of attempting to do that anyway, and then on top of it all, I homeschool my kids, or at least attempt to. We'll see how that all turns out. So I'm having a lot of fun writing, speaking, teaching, leading, creating, and of course prioritizing my family, or doing the best I can to do that in the middle of all that.
Nancy: I love that. I feel like that's why you're my soul sister, because so much of what you love, I love, with work and business, and ministry and family, and it's a lot to juggle all those things, but at Work And Play, on this podcast, I love talking about how to just live that integrated life of mixing all of them together, and building a life where they build on each other. I mean, that's definitely tricky because there's a lot of different things pulling you in a lot of different directions, but it's all good, so good, and God created us to do a lot of different things, so it's encouraging to hear that.
But today, I really want to dive in to the topic of prayer with you, because you've just had a book come out, I'm so excited about it. I have read probably half of it, but I also intentionally didn't finish it because I wanted to just wait 'til the actual book was in my hands so I could go through it as it's meant to go through, but it's so good. It's so, so good, but I just want to talk about ways that you can help us have a consistent prayer life. This book was borne out of an Instagram challenge that you did a while ago, I would love to hear a little bit more about why you did that. What prompted you to do that? How was this book born? What season of life were you in? Just kind of give us the story of the beginning of this book.
Chrystal: Sure. Well, my sister had written a book called Fervent, about prayer, and then that came up the same year that she was in a movie called War Room that focused on prayer, and I was thinking a lot about this idea of prayer, and I know how important it is, and I've been the beneficiary of people in my family who have been committed to pray, but then I wasn't consistent about it. I didn't necessarily have a problem with prayer like doing it, some people have a problem with what to say, and just feeling like they're going to get it right, and I didn't necessarily struggle with that as much as just doing it. The Bible says pray without ceasing, of course I was good about praying when there was a problem, or when I was desperate for rescuing, but just praying as a matter of conversation with God on-goingly, I wasn't necessarily as consistent as I thought I wanted to be. So what I said is, "If I tell the people on Instagram that I'm going to do it for 28 days, I'll have to," to make good on that promise.
So at the time Instagram was still chronological, and I would put out, I think six prayers a day, it was early morning, mid morning, lunchtime, afternoon, evening, and bedtime, and I said, "If I say I'm going to put out prayers just to prompt other people to pray," and these are my thoughts for the day, then I'll do it because I'm a sucker for a challenge, and I'm an achiever so there's that. But at the end of that we had a lot of people who wanted to do it again, and so we put together a little seven-day challenge for it, and then they wanted to do it again, and then my publisher said, "You know what? Why don't we just put this out again as a book?" I actually self-published at first, and took it on the road with me, and sold it when I would speak at events, and then the publisher said, "You know, we think there's a bigger market for that book, and so let's take it, and do something else with it." So that's how it was born, but that was years ago, and we're just trying to work on a habit.
Nancy: Yeah. So when you did this did you struggle with doubt putting out a book where you said it had been a struggle for you to be consistent about it? Did you struggle with any doubt as you were going through this, and releasing it, or what was it like for you as you were working through your prayer life, and trying to be more consistent?
Chrystal: Well, no, because I think both in the initial release of the prayers live on Instagram, daily live versions of that, and even the current, now printed version of it, both times I've been honest about the same thing. You all, don't get excited about me being a prayer warrior because I'm not, I am saying I'm one girl who's working through a challenge in my life, and if my way of working through it is helpful to you, and maybe gives you a template for you to work through it then awesome. But I think me, just being honest and saying, "I'm not there yet, but here's what I know, and I'm willing to share what I've learned, or what I do know that I'm working on," I think that authenticity leaves me free not to feel guilty about struggling while I'm sharing.
Nancy: It's so good, yeah. I totally agree with that. What was the significance of stopping six times a day, or in your book it's three times a day to pray throughout your day? Where did you come up with that, or what was the prompt for that?
Chrystal: Well, I just thought the natural times during the day where I would have conversations, so I thought the Bible says pray without ceasing, and obviously that does not mean every second of every day you're constantly praying, I think that it just means the line is open. When you have a great relationship, let's say a good girl friend, or maybe your boyfriend, or your spouse, you don't need this designated one time a day where you talk to them. Think about when you're interested in this guy you're dating, or maybe you're just high in love, just high love, right? You will text, or talk about anything just because, and so I remember when I was dating my husband I would ... we would exchange quick phone calls during the day, and just, "Hey, how's it going?" And, "Nothing, I'm just getting out of that morning meeting." It was just touching base, and checking in, and so I thought, "What are the natural points?"
Well, obviously breakfast, lunch, and dinner, we're used to praying for mealtimes, but when you wake up in the morning I wanted to add that. I wanted to add a mid-morning, after you've been to work for a couple of hours, and your boss is driving you crazy, or if the kids make you want to pull your hair out, a mid-morning for that. In the afternoon to hit that afternoon low, in the evening because after work, connecting after work, and of course going to bed. So first thing in the morning, mid-morning, afternoon, late afternoon, or early evening, and then bedtime, and of course we cut that back to three days a week because for the book ... because it's a book, and people have got to be able to put it in their purse. But the idea is just to prompt you so that you can talk to God about maybe some things you hadn't thought about talking to God about before.
I think one of the reasons why prayer sometimes is a problem for people beyond consistency that they're intimidated, like not knowing what to say, or the fact that I've got to have this big liturgical, traditional prayer when I get on my knees before God in the morning. There's nothing wrong with that, and I think that's a great way to pray, but if you're in your car on your way to the grocery store, so is that. So we just wanted to give ideas for, "Here are these many conversations that you can have with God because the line is always open. He is always available. He never sleeps, and we should take advantage of that."
Nancy: A lot of us have to rewrite that thinking in our minds to our beliefs about God, and one of the things you say in your book that I love is you say, "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," and that ... I've been walking with the Lord for so many years, over 20 years, and I still, for whatever reason, I think the enemy really likes for us to think it's too much. That little detail of your life is too much to bring to God, or it's not ... or it's too small, or it's not important enough, and when I read those words in your book I was just moved all over again to just talk with Him, any little thing to just talk.
I love your analogy of it being like a relationship, where if you're in love with someone you just want to share your day with them, and it reminds me of John 15 where it talks about abiding in the Lord. I think the longer I walk with the Lord that's more and more of my goal, is just to abide with Him, like you were saying, pray without ceasing. How does this, almost accountability, or the format of doing it three times a day, and the challenge of 28 days, how did it help you, Chrystal, abide with the Lord? What did that do for your relationship with Him?
Chrystal: Well, I think that for me, it just made me feel connected. I didn't feel like, "Oh, okay, now I've got to go, and have a Bible study time." Again, this comparison of our relationship with God to any relationship, if you are able to every evening, let's say have wine downtime with your husband, or you'll have morning coffee together, even though you go your separate ways throughout the day, that's a lot better than the once a quarter date, and the check-in with that. There's a knowing about his life, and his knowing about your own.
I have girl friends that I can talk to every three months, and we just get caught up, but one of my best girl friends just moved, she's a traveling nurse. She just moved literally less than a mile from me, and often she just stops by on her way home. So while we were always good friends, and while she was always there for me, and if I needed her she would be on a plane in a jiffy if I needed her to be, this idea that anytime now she can stop by, ring my doorbell, come on in and have a seat, there's an abiding in our friendship. She knows more about the details of my day, which deepens our friendship.
I think with God, because He's always available, it's us as the ones who have to remember to stop, and make room for him.
Again, that analogy with my friend, I'm home a lot, people think I'm always on a plane, or always ripping and running, and while I do have a pretty busy life, I'm home a lot more than what people think, and so I had ... that same friend would say, "Well, I didn't want to stop by, I didn't know if you were home, or I didn't know if you were busy, or I didn't know if this or that," and I'd say, "Girl, I'm right here, and I'm here most of the time, stop by." So her reason for not seeing me was not because I wasn't here, I wasn't available, it's because she wasn't stopping by, and I think that's the picture with God. He's always available, but we will only access his availability if we are intentional about stopping by. So for me, the change was greater connectivity, a feeling of greater intimacy and, and being struck by the opportunity that I had to talk to God about anything at any time, to feel not alone, to feel protected, provided for, to feel informed.
There's a Holy spirit of course, who was always with us because there's an activation of the Holy Spirit's voice in our lives when we're checking in. Actually I want to hear what you have to say, and any of us know that if you've got kids, this is the truth, you can tell them, especially as they get older. You can tell them whatever you want to 'til they're blue in the face, but it's a lot better when they're actually listening, they hear you better and they respond, and I think while God is actually always speaking to us, us coming with our ears wide open in prayer means we hear Him better. I think that that ongoing, active access to God through prayer allows us to hear it better.
Nancy: Yeah. I love the weekly format that you offer in your book, like Monday through ... I guess, Sunday through Saturday, like seven days of prayers. We'll talk a little bit about how that's set up, because I would love for my listeners just to hear so they can walk away from this podcast and know, "Okay, this is a practical guide how I can pray through my week," if they want to be better at praying, or exercise that voice of the Holy spirit in their lives a little bit more, and listen to Him. But before we get into that, I love what you said about talking to your kids, when they're listening you have their attention, and for moms especially.
I feel like this is going to be so helpful for moms because I've really struggled with little kids having the quiet time. The long quiet times that I did before I had kids, it's very ... The Lord's taught me a lot about abiding in Him, and I think this is going to be so good for moms, but not just moms, I was thinking as I was reading through, I was like, "It doesn't matter if you've been a Christian for 50 years, or if you're brand new, this book will benefit you, because every believer needs this. We need to be checking in with the Lord, and just meeting with Him several times throughout the day." So let's jump into the seven days a week, kind of the guide that you lay out in your book, and the prompts that you have for each day starting on Monday.
Chrystal: Yeah. So, and again, I don't want to play down the book cause I'm really proud of it, but this is not ... no, none of this is new. So where I use the acronym, PRAY, P for praise and give thanks, R for repent, A for ask, and Y for yield, there are other acronyms but I use ADORE, and I even used another one three years ago, and I want to say that it's not about the acronym, and it's also not about this rhythm. Don't feel bad if you just want to talk to God, and you have a prayer request, but you didn't actually get through praise and thanksgiving first, get to it eventually. But I think we have sometimes, as believers who understand that there are different ways to talk to God, we get this guilt trip if we don't do it all in the right order, and if we don't, I just want to say again, relationship.
There is a great way to talk to the people that you love, but when you love them and they love you, and you've got something to talk about, they're all ears. But when you think about that acronym of praising God and giving thanks, think about a conversation, a difficult conversation that you might have to have with a co-worker, an employee, or even a child, if you come to them and say, "Here's all the things you're doing wrong. Here's all the things I need you to do in my life. I need you to fix this and fix that." That's one way to have the conversation, and it might be effective in the short-term.
But things are a lot more productive if you come first and say, "Listen, I'm so grateful for how you've been helping me with the dishes every night. It is so helpful, and I'm just want you to know that I'm truly thankful because it's been really hard, and I'm glad that you keep showing up. I also know that the other night, when you were putting away the dishes, and you didn't do them the way I wanted you to, I snapped, and not only am I grateful, but I'm sorry, because I shouldn't have snapped at you if I was really grateful. But you know, the next time you put away the dishes, do you mind if you put the cups here? Because it makes it a lot easier when I'm going through the day with the kids if the things are located where I can find them. But you know, ultimately I know you're here to help me, and I'm sure we can work through it.
What I just went through is that acronym. I started with thanksgiving, then I said I was sorry, then I asked for what I wanted, and then said, "Hey, we're in this for the long haul, and I'm here to work on this," and that's relational conversation, and somehow we understand it when we're talking to a spouse, a co-worker or a friend, and all of a sudden we freak out when we have to talk to God, but it's the same thing. He's a God who shows up every day, and every now and then we should say, thanks, thanks for the sun coming up. You know, you're doing your part in this world. Every now and then we need to recognize that we're going to cross Him, it's going to be something that we're going to do because we're sinful creatures, we're made of flesh, that's going to be offensive to Him, and to say you're sorry is a good thing.
He tells us to ask.
He tells us to ask in His word, to believe with the mustard seed of faith, to show up without faith it is impossible to please God, Hebrews 11. To ask for what you want, He's a good father, the Bible tells us, the New Testament says, "Who gives good gifts to his children." So to show up and ask for what we want, because some things, I believe, even though God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing, Ephesians tells us there's some things that are only activated by our prayers. So it's a connective tissue, it's like God said to Noah, "Go build the boat," well, he didn't build a boat for Noah, Noah had to go and build it.
There was an access to God's provision in His delivering power that Noah was only going to have if he did his part, and prayer is your part.
But then yielding to just say, "Listen, I'm not the end all be all, it's more than just what I want. You probably have a plan. So I'm here for your plan. I'm here for your plan, and I'm totally supportive." Then I think if we could just see, "Okay, this acronym is a guide for conversation," and take the overthinking out of it, it's like, "No, I have to learn how to pray," which, okay, we can learn how to pray, but just bring it down a level and say,
"Actually there's a God who spent thousands of years making sure that not only after Adam and Eve sinned that we have a solution, that after Jesus the solution came."
God made sure that we have the ability to hold His word, the divinely inspired word of God in our hands, which took an incredible feat for 66 books to be written by a multiplicity of authors over thousands of years, and for them basically to be saying the same thing, then that's a lot of care.
So if this God said, "I want them to have fellowship with Me so I'm going to send my only son, and let Him be brutally murdered so that they can talk to Me, and so that they know what I want to say to them I'm going to make sure that they have My word," that to me is somebody who's already shown they're here for relationship, so why wouldn't we take the opportunity to talk, and have a full conversation like what we would have with an in-person friend, with the God of the universe who wants to be our friend too?
Nancy: My mother-in-law told me when I was ... I was telling her how I'm teaching my children how to pray, and when you get it down to the basics of teaching a four-year old how to pray, she was like, "Don't make it so formal. Don't put so much pressure on it, just say, hey," Milly is the name of my four-year old. "Milly," she's five now, but this was a conversation I had with her last year, I said, "Milly, it's just talking to God, just talking to Him." I feel like that's what I'm hearing you say is, "Yes, this is a good guide." To lay this out in a seven day format, and check in three days, three times a day, that's a guide, but ultimately prayer is just connecting with God, it's just talking to Him, and sometimes we put so much pressure on ourselves that we just we don't even do that, because we make it a bigger deal in our head than it actually is.
But I just think about that little conversation with Milly, and it really is, it's just checking in with Him, and talking to Him, and like in any relationship, like you said, if something comes up, you change your plans, you, you pivot. You change your plans, and you address what needs to be addressed in that relationship that day. But, what I love about this outline of starting Monday with the P of pray, and doing praise and thanksgiving, Tuesday is repent, seeking forgiveness, Wednesday, after two days of praising and repenting then getting to asking, presenting your requests and longings to God, and then Thursday is the Y, which is yield, surrender to God. I feel like it still gives us this healthy outline, whereas sometimes I find in myself I can just really get in the habit of asking for things that, but I forget those other important pieces and components to prayer in your relationship, which is just as important.
Just like that conversation you outlined with the dishes, like being grateful, asking forgiveness or repenting, and then asking for what you really need, and then ultimately just surrendering to the good in the relationship that God is. So yeah, those are just my thoughts, we really need to simplify it, but it's also good to have this guide. So after Thursday, after you finished the PRAY acronym, what do you move into Friday, Saturday, and Sunday?
Chrystal: Well, then we start talking about different ways to pray based on this freedom that we have on the weekend, to think about other things. This is like we work Monday through Friday, and then you have the weekend to do other things. So we pray for your spiritual community, your pastors, the church where you serve, we pray for your physical community, your neighbors, the town that you're in, we pray for your friends. I think one of the biggest thing that prayer gives us the privilege to do is to take action, and when we can't do anything else we can pray.
So while we want to spend time focusing on where God is leading us individually during the week, and on the weekends what we say is, "All right, now the sky's the limit." Pray for your friends. Text a friend and tell them that you're praying for them. Think about your family, your church members, the people that you serve with, and think about your pastors, think about the world where we're living, think about our leaders, and there's all these different ways to pray for other people so we take the weekend, and take our time walking through ideas for praying for people that you're concerned about.
Nancy: I love how you said, "Just like families have taco Tuesdays, Fridays are going to be faith, friends and family Fridays," and I was like, "That's going to stick with me," every Friday it's for family and friends, and faith, and praying for them. So I loved that, thinking of like a taco Tuesday rhythm because we do that in our house, but applying it to your prayer life that was really fun, and then Saturdays you introduce different challenges in your book. What are some of the challenges, Saturday challenges that you introduce?
Chrystal: Yeah. Well, one of them is just thinking through what I was just saying before about your friends and saying, "Okay, let's not just pray for the friend, but let's actually text the friend." But when you start thinking about all the different ways that we can reach outside of ourselves, so like one week during ... one day during one of these weekends we talk about praying for the nation. So let's think about ... think through, don't just say, "Okay, God, bless my nation," but think about those who were called to lead. Do you know who's in leadership beyond the president and the vice president? Do you know the name of the attorney general? Do you know the name of different people in leadership? The Speaker of the House, call them out, think about your congressmen, your senators, and other public officials, so we encourage you to think through those names and call them out.
We also encourage you to think about what you're seeing on the news. We watch the news, we get all concerned, and unnerved, and worried, but then do you stop and pray for the beating that you happen to see on ... Where there was a hearing, who was that guy? What was his name? What was the issue about? You can pray about that. I think we have to remember that the Bible says, "If my people," 2nd Chronicles 7:14, "who are called by My name, they will humble themselves and pray, then I will hear from heaven," and so we have this role as people of God, to not just praying for what we need and what we want, but thinking about the people who operate in our society, and keeping them lifted as well.
So it's praying about the government, and peace in the nation, the classes of people, you've got the working class, who are, maybe working hourly in the season of COVID, and who are struggling because they're getting less hours, and praying for them for job opportunities, but also praying for people who are still doing okay, and asking God to prick the hearts of people who have to give to people who do not have. There's so many ways that you can look at where we currently are as a nation, or where you think we should be, and praying God's in. So we're quick to have debating conversations, and maybe we avoid those political conversations with our family and our friends, but prayer is a way we can have an impact, praying for the schools, praying for the vulnerable in your community, praying for those who are serving, and then even thinking about the people who serve you, who is always at the line when you go to your same grocery store, if you even go to the grocery store store anymore. But you maybe see that one person that always checks you out.
Well, do you know their name? It's perfectly fine to say as you go through the line, "Hey, I always see you when I come through the line, what's your name? I'd love to pray for you this week." I think there are so many powerful ways that we can impact our community, our society, our nation, and so we take the fun ways, the fun opportunity, and the freedom that we have on the weekends to do a little bit of that.
Nancy: I love that, and then Sunday is for Sabbath prayers. Can you talk a little bit about what your Sabbath prayers are?
Chrystal: Yeah. So on the Sabbath we try to look at what are our spiritual community opportunities to pray. So that's where we're going to pray ... we focus on Sundays for missionaries, for pastors, for those who are in our spiritual community who are leading us. We're praying for not just the pastor, but the whole pastoral staff, because we know our senior pastors name, but some of us don't know that the other pastors who are on staff, who serve to hold up the hands of the leading teaching pastor, and so I'm praying for the church as a whole, praying for ministries that you are a part of. But, I mean, literally think about who you watched on YouTube, what's the last podcast you listened to, and you're growing, and you're developing because of that, but are you praying for those people who are providing you spiritual food? So we look at opportunities to say, "Who's feeding your soul?," and on the Sabbath, remembering their names to the Lord.
Nancy: I love that, and just to get real with you, I mean, you come from a family that has been in ministry, and your dad is a pastor, your whole family does ministry, and Will and I served on a church, he was the youth pastor for five years. I feel like during that time, our eyes were open to the burden that pastors carry, and all that they have to endure as a spiritual leader. You don't know it if you've never been in ministry, you never really seen the other side of what goes on.
Pastors have a weight that they carry, can you speak to that? Just kind of get raw and authentic, like this is important, to pray for our spiritual leadership, and everything you said is incredibly important, but just as an insight into your family, and maybe some of the spiritual warfare, or the heaviness or weight of your dad, of what he cares. I mean, it's intense. It is intense what they are doing. It's spiritual warfare that they are carrying on with every single day of their lives, they never get an off day from being a pastor. I mean, it's incredible, so could you just speak to that, and really encourage someone who's listening to really get on your knees and pray for your pastor?
Chrystal: Well, the thing is, it's kind of what you said, there's not really time off, and even when there's time off that time off isn't sacred in the sense that you're just going to disappear. I mean, of course, pastors take sabbaticals, but say it’s your Monday off, and somebody passes away in your congregation, you go take care of that family. Typically during seasons of hardship, when it's hard for the whole world right now, it's hard for my family, my dad, of course, we lost my mom in December, which is still crazy, every time I say that I feel like I'm talking about somebody else's life, but we did.
Then we went into COVID, so one of the most difficult seasons that we have as a church. He's still pastoring. We were thrown into online ministry, and we hadn't been doing that, and so everybody's learning everything, and he just lost his wife. We just lost our mom, and we're working in a different way than we've ever been, but this is what serving people is all about. I think that when you think about your pastor, if it's not that scenario, it's some scenario, trust me, where everybody has been having trouble, and where there's problems in the church, and then there's also financial issues, and at the same time he's dealing with his own stuff. So it's tough, and those prayers matter.
Nancy: Yeah, I appreciate you sharing that, because I think we ... if you're not in it, if you're not in ministry, if you've never been in ministry, you don't really see that. Even Will and I, we experienced it on such a lesser level as youth pastor, and youth pastor's wife, then our head pastors, but I just always tell them, "I just don't envy you. There's just a lot that you see, and that you carry that no one else will ever see," so yeah, I just ... Yeah, pray for your pastors, I love that, to keep that in mind on Sabbath, because I think for me, it's a challenge ... Sabbath, for me, is all about me, it's about resting. It's about rejuvenating, and it is. It's about spending time with the Lord, but just remembering that on a Sunday, which is most of our Sabbath, that's the heaviest workday for pastors, that's their biggest workday, so just lifting them up is so important.
Chrystal: Yeah, it sure is.
Nancy: So your 28 Day Prayer Journey, it's out, this habit of prayer can now be anybody's to take with them, and practice, and incorporate in their lives. Chrystal, how do you envision a reader interacting with this book that you have written? What's your vision or hope for one person who's listening, who might decide to go get it? What's your vision for her?
Chrystal: Our vision is that she has it in her tote bag or her purse, or that if she got the e-reader version, that it's on her phone. My vision is that even if she has to set a reminder to go back and say, "Okay, what was the thing for today?" That she's kind of like, "Okay, I'm on a journey, and I'm going to see what happens when I show up for my relationship with God. I want to see what happens," and for her to be forever changed, because she's consistently showing up to see what it is that God wants to do in her life when she's showing up consistently to talk to Him and to be forever changed because she made that investment.
I think that if she's just decided she's just going to camp out there, it's kind of like a diet, where your brain is on it all the time, you prepare for it, you plan for your food the night before. You're conscious of it multiple times a day because that's the decision you need to make multiple times a day, and you just said, "Because I have this bigger goal I'm going to have a dedicated focus on prioritizing, keeping this thing in front of me." So that's the goal, that she just decide for 28 days to keep this in front of her, and that she forever changes her result.
Nancy: I love that. Well, I'm excited to get my hands on it, and go through it slowly on pace for 28 days. Thank you so much for all the work that you put into it. I know it's going to be such a blessing to so many listeners. I'm going to close with four fun questions, just whatever comes to your mind, anything that you want to share. So the first question is what is a book that you're loving, or a book that you have loved reading in the last year or so?
Chrystal: In the last year I am enjoying reading a book, A Man Called Ove. I just went on Amazon, I was like, "I need fiction in my life," and I love reading, but I'm always reading for information, and so yeah, so I've been reading that. It's an enjoyable read, and I'm just taking my time getting through it, nothing [crosstalk 00:35:06] meaningful, it's just ... O-V-E.
Nancy: O-V-E, okay. I was like, "Ove, that's kind of weird." Okay.
Chrystal: Yeah, I just went on there, and was like fiction, New York Times Bestsellers, and it came up, and I was like, "Okay, I'm going to buy it up." It has a lot of ratings. I'm just going to read it and see what happens.
Nancy: That's so fun. Okay, what's a product that you're loving? It can be anything.
Chrystal: Oh, AquaNotes, it's a sectional pad that goes in the shower, so the great ideas that you get when you're taking a bath you don't lose.
Nancy: No way. That's amazing.
Chrystal: Waterproof paper, and everything.
Nancy: What? Okay, that's really cool, definitely going to look into that. What does work and play mean to you?
Chrystal: It means balance, that you should work hard, but you ought to have time where you're enjoying the fruit of your hands, and for some of us, achievers like me, who like to check things off the box and work until they drop, you have to be intentional about the play, or at least I do.
Nancy: Yeah, me too. Do you know what you are in enneagram? This is a side question.
Chrystal: Three. Three.
Nancy: Me too. Okay, that makes sense. All right. Okay, last question, how do you maintain a healthy soul, and a fulfilling life?
Chrystal: Maintaining margin, which does look like Sabbath sometimes, but often looks like knowing when ... what my indicators are for going too far. My kids are saying, "Are you still working?" That's an indicator. If we've eaten out more than a couple of times in a week, that's an indicator. If I haven't been out for a nice walk in more than a couple of days, that's an indicator. Because those are things that are important to me, and if I'm not doing them then there's a reason why, and usually overextending myself is the cause.
Nancy: Yeah, so good. Well, that's it. Thank you, Chrystal, what a joy, this conversation was so good. I feel like I'm going to take so much of what you said with me, probably for the rest of my life. I mean, it was really, really good, so thank you. Thank you for this book. I'm so excited. Where can my listeners find you?
Chrystal: You can go to chrystalevanshurst.com, and everything you want to know will be right there.
Nancy: Awesome. Thank you, Chrystal. I'm so grateful for you.
Chrystal: Thanks for having me.
work & play cornerstore
it's time for the Work And Play Cornerstore, and for quick access you can always head to nancyray.com/cornerstore, and it'll take you directly to Amazon so you can see everything I've ever mentioned here on the podcast, or on Instagram. Remember, my Amazon store is one way that I can continue to bring this podcast to you every week.
Today, I'll be adding Chrystal's book, The 28 Day Prayer Journey, as well as AquaNotes to the Cornerstore. You better believe I'm going to go get me some AquaNotes as soon as I finish here today.
I'm going to close with words from Chrystal's new book, she asks,
"What would you ask God to do in your life, or in the life of another? If you believed that He would do it, what would you ask God for if you weren't afraid to take a chance on the impossible?"
Often I find that we pray safe prayers because we don't want to be disappointed if God doesn't answer, don't just pray about what's logical and possible, pray hard about the impossible. God will show you that nothing, nothing, nothing is impossible with Him ever.
End of story.
Thanks for listening, and I'll see you next time.
