SCH 077 Four Self-Care Hacks for Improving Your Personal Spiritual Growth

Recent events convince me I need to continually improve my personal spiritual growth. Without growth, I lose power and focus.

“She belongs to me!” The student lay on the floor, body writhing and fists clenched. She moaned and giggled and called out again, “She belongs to me!”

Her arms flailed with supernatural strength. Some of us continued to softly sing, while others rebuked the devil and others read scriptures over the student. A holy battle raged. One I had never witnessed before. The type of battle one thinks only takes place in Africa where witch doctors reign.

We continued to sing, pray, and rebuke. Some of us questioned our rightness with God. Did we spend time each day on personal spiritual growth? Did our collective faith have the power to cast out demons in Jesus’ name?

A few days before, during a similar episode, the student had identified herself as Legion. More than 30 minutes passed before she called out for the very first time, “Jesus, save me!” The room erupted in cheers of praise for Jesus’ victory over the evil one.

Jesus longs for relationship with us. He stands at the door of our heart and knocks, but we have a part to play, too. We must spend time each day in personal spiritual growth. Going to church and learning in community has its place, but nothing helps us grow more quickly in our faith than spending time each day getting to know God better.

Today’s podcast has four hacks to help you identify ways to nurture your personal spiritual growth. As we spend time at the feet of Jesus we will discover a desire to know him more.

Books on prayer you might find helpful:

Praying Woman: How to Pray When You Don’t Know What to Say, by Sheila Walsh

Lord, Teach Me to Pray in 28 Days, by Kay Arthur

God, I Have Issues: 50 Ways to Pray No Matter How You Feel, by Mark Thibodeaux

His Way to Pray: A Devotional Study of Prayer, by W. Phillip Keller

Information on Sabbath Rest:

Six Self-Care Hacks to Help You Find Sabbath Rest

Self-Care Hacks to Help You Increase Your Creativity With Sabbath Rest

Discover the Adventure of Sabbath Rest

True Sabbath Rest

Learn to Abide

True You: Letting Go of Your False Self to Uncover the Person God Created, by Michelle DeRusha

A Shepherd Looks at Psalms 23, by W. Phillip Keller

Books About Yielding

Jesus Over Everything: Uncomplicating the Daily Struggle to Put Jesus First, by Lisa Whittle

Magnificent Obsession, by Lloyd C. Douglas

In His Steps, by Charles Sheldon

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Next week I’ll talk about habit-forming and the secret to successfully forming new habits.

“Let’s see how big of a snowball we can make!” one student shouted to another.

I looked around the campus and tried to hide my smile. An inch of snow coated the still-green grass. The boys would have a difficult time creating any size of snowball with their scant resources.

But I failed to consider the ingenuity of motivated elementary kids. Before long, one of the girls had shed her jacked and carried it to a sidewalk. She carefully scraped the snow off the concrete, loaded it onto her jacket, and carried her treasure to the snowball production area. Other students caught on, and a bevy of kids swarmed campus collecting snow. They dumped their collections in the path of the snowball rollers.

After 30 minutes of hard work, the kids had a snowball as tall as the tallest boy. It took three of them to push it. They had done the impossible with limited resources. The snowball looked a little like a monster, with leaves, sticks, small rocks, and grass poking out all over. They didn’t care about ugly.

Most of us have heard about the snowball effect. When we form a small ball of snow and roll it around in the snow, it will pick up more snow and grow bigger and bigger. Each revolution will increase the weight of the snowball, thus allowing it to compact even more snow to its surface.

My students, many of whom only see snow once or twice a year, came up with an ingenious plan to create the snowball effect whether they had a deep field of snow or not. Their creativity and teamwork not only provide an example of the snowball effect, but it taught me the value of enlisting friends and not letting an apparent lack of resources stop me.

If you want to try habit-forming, I challenge you to use the snowball effect. Start small. Know your why. Give yourself triggers to help remind you of your goal. Today’s podcast goes into greater detail on how you can start your own snowball effect habit-forming today.

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