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Praying for Your Elephant by Adam Stadtmiller (Review of an Amazing Book!)

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Praying for Your Elephant by Adam Stadtmiller

Praying for Your Elephant (Amazon affiliate link)

I read A LOT of books… Spiritual books, Old Hollywood Biographies, inspirational books, Agatha Christie mysteries, American History books, Ancient Egypt books, cookbooks….

You get the idea. I’m almost always seen with several books in one hand, a caffeinated beverage in the other, and a cat (or two or three) in my lap.

I always have more than one book going at once – usually 3 or 5 because my interests are all over the place. Having said that, these genres (in order) are always given top priority:

  • Christian Books
  • Biographies
  • Agatha Christie mysteries

Agatha Christie is like playtime for my brain.. I simply love everything about her mysteries. Old Hollywood books are an absolute obsession – if I’m not watching an Old Hollywood movie, I’m lost in at least one biography. As for Christian, inspirational and Spiritual books – they feed my soul and they are, for many obvious reasons, my number one love when it comes to books.

Sorry, Hercule.

The book you see pictured here, Praying for Your Elephant (Amazon affiliate link), is one of the best books of any genre I have ever read. You read that right…. I loved it that much.

Have you ever heard of the phrase “Prayer Warrior?” I have considered myself to be a Prayer Warrior for many years. This simply means that I pray day and night with the fervency and determination of a warrior who is smack in the middle of the battlefield. I pray for my family, friends, people I read about, strangers, crazy drivers who run red lights, individuals I see others asking prayers for, countries, churches, missionaries, etc.

With this much praying going on and with this much on the line, I need all the inspiration I can get! Naturally, the Bible provides the bulk of said inspiration, but God uses Christian authors to further inspire and motivate. Very often, they help reignite a fire that, without a little extra encouragement, might be less than best.

Prayer does the salvage work of raising the sunken treasure of our lives. – Praying for Your Elephant Page 57  (Amazon affiliate link)

This particular author, Adam Stadtmiller, has written an extraordinary book and it has taken my prayers to a whole new level. I’ve always believed in asking God for all needs – from small to large and all sizes in between. However, this book has inspired me to go further. It takes the phrase “small to large” and asks, “Why stop at large? Aim for COLOSSAL!”

Elephant-Size Colossal.

From the Back Cover:

What If Your Biggest Prayers are Too Small?

Get ready to re-ignite, re-imagine, and repurpose your prayer life while experiencing great intimacy with God. This is an invitation to identify your elephants—to name, through specific and strategic prayers, the 100 most important and audacious petitions you can imagine. These are the elephants that—if answered by God—would be game changers in your life and perhaps the world.

By supersizing your prayers and daring to ask for the big things – your elephants – you will come to know God in a way you never have, even if His answers aren’t what you expect. Dive deep into the adventure that is the prayer-filled life!

Praying for Your Elephant starts off with a bang. The author guides you into a 40 Day Prayer Challenge: Forty Days to Praying for Your Elephants. He gives you 10 suggested “categories” to create to organize your prayers and all but dares you to pray big!

My take away from this section was to pray as big as the God we’re talking to. Again, COLOSSAL comes to mind.

The book provides a chart for these categories, or you can simply write them down on paper or (my own personal approach) in a Prayer Journal. Writing prayers down helps you to see, over time, which prayers are answered and which ones may take a little longer. I have also experienced something else in my prayer journal – sometimes your prayer changes as God guides you from one destination to the next.

“There is no way that Christians in a private capacity can do so much to promote the work of God, and advance the kingdom  of Christ, as by prayer.” – Jonathan Edwards

Praying for Your Elephant is available on Amazon and I, quite frankly, could not recommend it enough. I love to tell you about books that have the potential to change your life for the better… to help you open up a whole new world… to touch you in such a way that you feel empowered to do anything you set your mind and heart to!

This is such a book and I really hope you’ll grab your copy as soon as possible. You won’t regret it. ~ Joi (“Joy”)

Find out more by visiting Praying for Your Elephant! (Amazon affiliate link)

About the Author: Adam Stadtmiller (Amazon affiliate link) is lead pastor at one of the San Diego’s most historic churches, La Jolla Christian Fellowship. A regular contributor to Christianity Today’s Leadership Journal, he is also the author of Give Your Kids the Keys and Discover Your Kid’s Spiritual Gifts. Adam lives in Carlsbad, California, with his wife and two daughters.

Praying for Your Elephant Quote Graphic

Inspirational Book Review: The Essential Guide to Prayer by Dutch Sheets

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The Essential Guide to Prayer by Dutch Sheets
The Essential Guide to Prayer by Dutch Sheets (Amazon affiliate link)
I read as often as fat cats think about eating. During the winter, I really give them a run for their money. My favorite books to read, understandably, cover my favorite subjects: God, the Golden Age of Hollywood, cooking, cats, birds, angels, American history, Ancient Egypt, writing, baseball, the Golden Age of Television, preventing Alzheimer’s, nutrition, the Civil War era, and Bigfoot.

What can  I say, I’m all over the place.

Inspirational books have a special place in my heart, for obvious reasons. I mean, can we ever get enough inspiration. I’ll go ahead and answer that… heck no.

The most recent Inspirational book I read was by a favorite author, Dutch Sheets (Amazon affiliate link). Is that a great name or what? He was born to be either a movie star, author, politician, or baseball player. I’m not sure about his other skill sets, but I’m going out on a limb and saying he chose wisely.  While I’ve read several of this author’s books, I’d count him among my favorite authors if this particular book, The Essential Guide to Prayer (Amazon affiliate link), was the only one I’d read.

It’s that special.

“Your prayers and mine can make a difference. We must become convinced of this. Our prayers can be irresistible to God and indefensible to Satan. That’s pretty strong language, isn’t it? Do I believe it? Yes, and so can you.” – Page 39

If you were to observe me as I read a book (not exactly must-see entertainment, mind you), you’d be able to tell how special a particular book is by my behavior. When a book is extra special, I take notes that’d impress any college professor. When the book is extra extra special, I will also frequently close the book and just sit and think about what I’ve just read.

With this particular book, I discovered a third level of special… the extra extra extra special level. On this level, I photograph passages to send to my daughters along with heart and praying hand emojis.  All the while knowing I’ll be passing the book along to them to read as well. At least they get the emojis this way and, trust me, my emoji game is strong.

From the Back Cover:

Life-Changing Teaching On the Simplicity of Having A Powerful Prayer Life

A prayer life with God isn’t complex, but sometimes not knowing how to start can be enough to make a person turn away altogether. In The Essential Guide to Prayer (Amazon affiliate link) you’ll discover that the starting point is to find your motivation for prayer in the power of love by forming a solid relationship with God as Father and Friend. As Dutch Sheets lays the foundation for your motivation to pray, he challenges you to reflect with “Did you understand?” questions at the end of each chapter. Dig deeper into the core of your prayer life by learning to pray effectively both alone and in groups, and by persisting in prayer until you see God’s answers.

The Essential Guide to Prayer (Amazon affiliate link) is a must read for anyone who is interested in improving their prayer life. This beautiful (and very, very funny) book will make you fall in love with prayer again. You’ll be more excited and anxious to pray than you probably have been in years.

Whether, like me, you’ve been praying for nearly as long as you’ve been walking or you’re relatively new to prayer, this beautiful book will do more than just inspire and inform you… it will ignite a fire within you to pray bolder, larger, and further-reaching prayers than you’ve ever dared to pray before.

Although I had been praying faithfully for too many years to count, about three years ago, I read a story on Guideposts.com about a woman who was a “prayer warrior.” The image of her sitting at her kitchen table praying squeezed my heart and I decided, then and there, that I wanted to be a prayer warrior, too. I studied Bible verses about prayer, read great Christian authors, and armed myself with as much information and inspiration as possible.

When you have the compassion and heart for the task, it’s always best to arm yourself with all the information and inspiration you can find.

I wish I had this book years ago – the information would have right there in one beautiful place!

If you’re already a prayer warrior or simply want to improve your own prayer life,  I simply cannot recommend this book enough. It is a fast-reading, fascinating, eye-opening, and heart-stirring book and you will cherish every single word.  This book can take your prayer life to the next level and, as you can imagine, that can make a world of difference – not just in your own life but in the lives of countless others.

You’ll probably even take pictures of passages and text them to everyone you know.  Just don’t forget the emojis.

About the Author:

Doug Sheets is an internationally recognized author, teacher, and speaker. Based in Colorado, he travels extensively, empowering believers for passionate prayer and societal transformation. He has pastored, taught, and served on the board of directors of numerous organizations.

Find The Essential Guide to Prayer (Amazon affiliate link) by Dutch Sheets on Amazon. This book is one you are going to love.