My faith backstory: I’ve been a follower of Jesus since I was 11. I was raised in a Christian home, but one summer on June 22, it became vividly real to me. I knew Jesus died for me and that He was perfect, but I didn’t think that it was a very loving thing to go and die for someone. I didn’t understand that at all as a kid. When I attended camp with my best friend, one night the Holy Spirit opened my eyes to the truth that Jesus actually died in my place. The verse that made it all clear: “for the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus.” THE WAGES OF SIN is death. I knew I had done wrong, and that Jesus was perfect. It clicked – He died on the cross so that I wouldn’t have to.
I crawled up in the top bunk and cried myself to sleep, overwhelmed by the love of God. I invited Him into my heart and my life as Lord and have been following Him ever since.
Through the years, I have learned and practiced so many ways of connecting with God. My rhythms looked different in every season, and I want you to know that it’s very important for you to connect with God in the best way for what season you are in.
In middle school and high school, I loved journaling and reading my Bible at night before bed. In college, I grew most studying scripture alongside friends in a girls Bible study. The first 7 years of marriage (before babies), I nailed down a morning routine that was life giving, full of prayer and scripture and meditation.
Now, I am learning to walk with Him throughout my whole day. I have rhythms I put rhythms into place that will help my spiritual growth (which I will share below), but more than anything, I am learning to ABIDE. To “keep in step with the Spirit” as Galatians 5 says to do. To talk to God and check in with Him throughout my day.
This shift began when my babies were newborns, and there wasn’t as much of a cadence or difference between day and night. My morning routine got thrown out the window, and I was desperate to connect with God however I could. I missed my time with Him every morning. I have since learned this way is much better – to have a morning routine, but to truly connect with Him throughout my days!
Take a moment to read these words below. This is my heart behind this post and the importance of organizing your spiritual life. Taken from one of my favorite books, Ordering your Private World:
Thomas Kelley says, “We are trying to be several selves at once, without all our selves being organized by a single mastering Life within us.” Again he says, “Life is meant to be lived from a Center, a divine Center. Each one of us can live such a life of amazing power and peace and serenity, of integration and confidence and simplified multiplicity on one condition – that is, if we really want to.” And that is the condition with which we must finally deal. Do we really want order without or private worlds? Again, do we want it? If it is true that actions speak louder than words, it would appear that the average Christian does not really seek an ordered private world as a top priority. It would seem that we prefer to find our human effectiveness through busyness, frantic programming, material accumulations, and rushing to various conferences, seminars, film series, and special speakers. In short, we try to bring order to the inner world by beginning with activity in the outer one. This is exactly the opposite of what the Bible teaches us, what the great saints have shown us, and what our dismal spiritual experiences regularly prove to us.” (p. 273)
With that perspective, I humbly share my current faith rhythms and habits (that I don’t do perfectly), hoping it will be an encouragement to you in your faith, too!
1. Meditate on Scripture daily
Throughout the years, I’ve done this so many different ways. I’ve read through the Bible 4 different times, reading about 4 chapters a day. I’ve read the same book 3 times in a row. I’ve read 1 chapter a day, asking the Lord to guide me in which books He wants me to read. And more recently with nursing babies, I’ve read 1-3 verses a day, meditating on them throughout the day. The point is this: get Scripture in your mind and heart every day. Let it be your guiding truth. It is POWERFUL. And if you want to take it a bit deeper, there’s a great chapter on Meditation in one of my top 5 books ever: The Celebration of Discipline. It’s incredibly helpful!
2. Talk With God
Otherwise known as prayer ;). But I like to think of it more as talking with God. Take the religion out of it! It’s more like sharing. Listening. Drawing close to Him. I aim to talk with Him 3 times a day: as part of my morning routine, in the afternoon, and in the evening before I sleep. I love the example that Shauna Niequest provides in Present over Perfect: approach prayer like Vinegar and Oil:
“When you pray, pour out the vinegar first – the acid, whatever’s troubling you, whatever hurt you, whatever is harsh and jangling your nerves or spirit. You pour that out first – I’m worried about this child, or I’m hurt from this conversation. I’m lonely, I’m scared. I don’t know how this thing will even get fixed. Pour out all the vinegar until it’s gone.
Then what you find underneath is the oil, glistening and thick: We’re going to be fine. God is real and good and present and working. … This is the grounding truth of life with God, that we’re connected, that we’re not alone, that life is not all vinegar – pucker and acidic. It is also oil, luscious, thick, heavy with history and flavor.
But you have to start with the vinegar or you’ll never experience the oil. Many of us learned along the way to ignore the vinegar – the hot tears banging on our eyelids, the hurt feelings, the fear. Ignore them. Stuff them. Make yourself numb. And then pray dutiful, happy prayers. But this is what I’m learning about prayer: you don’t get the oil until you pour out the vinegar”
3. Journal
My journals are some of my post precious possessions in my home. I have a cabinet filled with completed journals from the time I was 11. I have prayers, sermon notes, thoughts, and scripture written down from so many seasons of my life: when I just started following Jesus, when I gave up dating for a year in high school to strengthen my relationship with the Lord, when I graduated, when boys broke my heart, when my parents got divorced, when I fell in love with Will, when I went to college and was very homesick, when I became a wife, when we lived in Boone, when we moved to Raleigh, when I grew as a business owner, when I became a mother. Both of the girls’ birth stories are journaled in vivid detail, too. I wouldn’t trade these journals for anything.
Here are a few of my journaling practices:
– When I start a new journal, I write the month and year inside the front cover (ex: March 2014). When I finish a journal, I put the month and year on the back inside cover. This allows me to glance at a journal and know the season of life in which I was writing.
– I always write my name and phone number on the front page, so it will (hopefully) be returned to me if I misplace it.
– I keep a cabinet in my home only for my used journals. I call it my Omer of Manna! Moses said, “This is what the LORD has commanded: ‘Take an omer of manna and keep it for the generations to come, so they can see the bread I gave you to eat in the desert when I brought you out of Egypt.’” So Moses said to Aaron, “Take a jar and put an omer of manna in it. Then place it before the Lord to be kept for the generations to come. As the Lord commanded Moses, Aaron put the manna in front of the Testimony, that it might be kept.” Exodus 16:32-34
– If I attend a conference or workshop that offers its own small notebook or journal for note-taking, I choose not to use it. Instead, I bring my own journal with me and keep all notes from every sermon / conference / workshop in the same place.
– I often will take meaningful notes, letters, or post its and tape them inside the pages of my journals. It’s the best way to keep those words that I never know what to do with!
