Do you read your Bible…but wish you did it more often?
Do you pray…but wish you devoted more time to talking with God?
Sometimes you don’t need to build a new spiritual habit. You just need to take an existing habit, and make it stronger.
This post will give you four strategies go deeper with your current spiritual routine. First, let’s talk about the strategies. Then, we can look at a practical example to help you apply these ideas to your life.
THE FOUR STRATEGIES
If you’ve ever tried to lose weight, you may be familiar with hitting a plateau. This happens when what you have been doing to drop pounds suddenly doesn’t work anymore. Something similar can happen in our spiritual lives. A new season comes and the way we’re approaching prayer or another spiritual discipline just isn’t connecting us to God in the same way.
When this happens, there are four things you can do to change up your spiritual habit. You can:
Change the Duration: You may need to invest more time to in the habit to connect with God and his power.
Change the Frequency: You may need to seek God more often to stay connected with him.
Change the Timing: You might need to practice the habit at a new time of day to stay consistent or stay focused.
Change the Structure: You might benefit from a new method or approach to avoid going through the motions when you take time to be with God.
THE STRATEGIES APPLIED
Before you try to implement one of these strategies, let’s look at how each one could enhance your spiritual life.
Let’s say you currently read your Bible every weekday morning for 5 minutes. There was a time when this was great. But now you feel rushed and want more time to think and pray about what you’re reading.
You could change the duration of your study time from 5 minutes to 15 minutes. This strategy could work if you have time to spare in the morning and believe it’s still the best time to digest Scripture.
But what if you’re a mom who’s lost control of your morning due to a new baby or school schedule?
Then you could try to change the timing. Your new baby is always asleep by 8:00 p.m., so reading before your bedtime works better. Or, you wait in the carline alone every weekday, so reading in the car now fits best. You don’t need to be a mom to use this technique. It’s great for anyone who has can build a new, consistent time into their schedule for spiritual practice.
But what if the issue isn’t time related, it’s your outlook? Your once a day Bible study used to keep you God-centered during the day. Now you find it harder lean on him.
Then you could try changing the frequency. You might read Scripture in the morning, and then meditate on the same Scripture one or more times during the day. This draws you back into God’s presence so you’re not trying to stay full with one morning “fill-up.”
But maybe your practice just feels stale. No matter how long or how frequently you go, you just feel disconnected to God.
Then it may be time to change the structure. Pray and ask God for wisdom about what to change. Perhaps finding a study guide that helps you dig deeper into the historical and social context of the Bible book will help. May it’s time for small group Bible study.
FIND THE STRATEGY FOR YOU
So what spiritual habit would you like to strengthen?
Once you name it, you can brainstorm how each of the four strategies could help you deepen your practice.
There’s no right way to go deeper in your spiritual habits. Pray and see what God might reveal about how to grow closer to Him.
And if you want a resource to support you as you change up your habits, our ABIDE & FOCUS Planner may help. Click here to learn about them and see how they could support you on your spiritual journey.
