Episode 94 - 5 Tips for Making Time for Spiritual Growth

Welcome back to another episode of the Beyond Bible Study podcast series. If you are following along, the past 2 weeks we discussed 10 spiritual disciplines that will transform your heart and mind. 

And today we are bringing 5 practical ways to overcome some of the obstacles that keep us from actually implementing the disciplines! We all know we need to be devoting time to our spiritual health, and yet we can love the idea of that more than the actual action of it.

Sometimes it can be hard to incorporate the spiritual disciplines into our daily lives because we are always so busy.   Let these tips help you… and share the episode with someone else in your life who needs it!

So what are the 5 tips for us to make time for our spiritual growth you might ask?

1. Schedule your time

Scheduling your time with God is really important, whether it is putting things in your planner, a digital planner or calendar. We schedule meetings, doctor's appointments, birthdays celebrations, and all the important things in our life so we don't forget about them.

We need to also schedule God. Write it in your calendar.  For example:  “I'm going to start consistently practicing this discipline: Hospitality. I'm going to reach out and schedule lunch with someone in my local church”  Then put it on your calendar!

The same thing works with some of other disciplines, like solitude and silence. Plan a personal retreat once a month, once a quarter. Get away for 24 hours without anybody else around, no distractions, and just spend time with God. 

Get out your calendar and your planner and use it for your spiritual growth.  

2. Let’s plan

It is not just planning the time, but planning what you're actually going to do when you have the time. Sometimes we can set aside time for God in the morning, before the kids get up or after the kids are gone for school, for example. And then we sit down and we don't know what we're doing!  And we can waste all of our time trying to think it out. And there's no meeting with God.

That happens because we haven't properly planned for the time that we've scheduled. And so having a plan for that time in advance, plan exactly what it is that you're going to do. 

3. Pairing 

This practical step means to pair what you're doing with something else that you are already in the habit of doing. This is habit stacking. 

For example, every morning if you get up and you make a cup of coffee, pair it with one of the disciplines you are working on until it becomes a habit as well.  

A lot of us struggle with consistency with some of our spiritual disciplines, and this is a way to help because there are things that you do every single day on autopilot without thinking, whether it be brushing your teeth or taking a shower or drinking that cup of coffee or walking the dog. 

And now we are just adding to it.

P.S.  Habit stacking is one of the things that we actually practice in our Spiritual Growth Accelerator.  Go to sojoacademy.com/sga and check it out!

4. Gather your supplies

The next thing we recommend to help yourself be more successful in practicing spiritual disciplines is to gather your supplies. We need supplies. We don't wany to spend our time running all over the house trying to find our concordance.

Having supplies like tissues and pens and the Bible, journal and note cards to write things down all in one little spot as we are doing those spiritual disciplines is very helpful. 

Here is a 5-day challenge called ‘Create Your Space Challenge’, to get you started (if you are a member of Sojo Academy, the challenge is in your dashboard). 

5. Prayer

Pray that the Holy Spirit will remind you of the disciplines throughout the day and get you up early to be prepared for that.  (That’s pretty meta, right?)

He cares about you everyday.  This simple little step can make a big difference.

To review our five steps for being more consistent and making time for your spiritual growth disciplines:

• Schedule it.
• Have a plan before you get there. 
• Pair it with an existing habit. 
• Gather your supplies
• Be in prayer. 

All of those are written out in our momentum-free gift that you can get at sojoacademy.com/momentum. Don’t forget to use it to help with your reflections.  

COMING UP

If you are ready for some hands-on implementation of this and you want some accountability with Jen and AJ, then we have a perfect opportunity coming up for you. In October, we're going to take 28 days and commit ourselves to this!

And if you join us, we are going to hold you accountable as well. We're going to give you tips on how to habit stack and use time blocking for your spiritual disciplines.

It is challenging because we're serious about this, but we have had hundreds of ladies go through it over the past couple times we've done it, and we know it works!

You can learn more about the newly revamped SGA at sojoacademy.com/sga