A 40-Day Spiritual Workout

A daily devotional by Bob Rice

I first wrote “The 35 Day Spiritual Workout” in the late 90s as a follow up to the Steubenville Summer Youth Conferences. When I was a teen and attended a Young Life camp, my youth minister recommended a book called, “My First Thirty Quiet Times.” It was a thirty day devotional that got me into the habit of prayer. I thought that kind of devotional would be great for teens that had a powerful experience at a youth conference but didn’t know what to do when they got home.

Since writing it, over ten thousand people have gone through it and have shared how much they were blessed by it. In the summer of 2013, I updated it to the “40-Day Spiritual Workout.” I didn’t just add five days, I went over the whole thing based on feedback I’ve gotten over the past few years. I trimmed back some of the verses, removed days that weren’t as strong as the others, and added stories.  I also was able to make a clearer connection to the five forms of prayer that the Catechism talks about.

I appreciate what Book Reviews and More wrote about it: “The book is written in such a way that you have a short reading or readings each day from the bible; then quotes from Catholic authors, the Catechism or church writings. Then comes the teaching. And trust me, Bob’s teaching is marvelous. This book will help you develop spiritual disciplines and improve upon those you already have.”

The book is available at Amazon.com. But that’s not the only way to experience this devotional.

Because of it’s popularity, the Steubenville Youth Conferences created an iPhone app for it. It’s pretty cool: it has Facebook sharing, a teen can email their youth minister when they finish a workout, change the background, etc. It’s called “40 Day Spiritual Workout for Catholic Teens.” It’s essentially the same content as the “40 Day Spiritual Workout for Catholics,” but they wanted to market to teenagers. You can download that for free at the App Store. It’s got over 100 5-star reviews and great feedback. My favorite review from a teen is, “I use this more than angry birds now. Wow!”

If you don’t have an iDevice, you can also each devotional daily through your email, and you can sign up for that at 40days.steubenville.org. I hope at some point to also create a podcast of it as well.

I’m thrilled to make this available in as many formats as possible to reach as many people as I can. At almost every event I speak at, someone tells me how this devotional has blessed their life and has led them closer to Christ. And that’s what it’s all about!