The Secret to Being Consistent with Spiritual Growth

If you struggle to stay consistent with daily prayer and Bible study this Christian agenda planner from DaySpring is just what you need!

Having a spiritual growth plan in place helps me to continue to grow and learn about who God is. It’s what helps me stay calm in the face of hard times. It’s what keeps me sane.

What is a Spiritual Growth Plan?

If you have never done a spiritual growth plan before, let me explain what it is and what it’s for:

• Your plan is a roadmap/guide for what you plan to do to grow spiritually. It could be a spreadsheet, a bullet list, pics, etc. Anything that works for you.
• It’s a tool to help you stay focused and hold yourself accountable throughout the year.
• It’s a tool to help you learn what works for you and what doesn’t.
• It’s a way to look back when the year is over to see what you have accomplished.

Getting Started with Your Spiritual Growth Plan

It’s easy to get to the end of the year and think that you haven’t grown at all. When you sit down to start planning you may not want to look back at all the pain and disappointment.

But something amazing happens when you do …

You’ll be able to see all the blessings God gave you over the year:

• Things you didn’t like or that were really hard –you’ll see how God used them for your good.
• Those closed doors that were God’s protection.
• Things you thought were failures — you’ll be able to see how they were successes.
• Times when you thought God had let you down — you’ll see how they were actually victories.

Take a Look Back

Sit and write down all the highs and lows of the last year.

Grab a piece of paper or a journal and pour it all out on the pages. Write down answered prayers. Write down the things that you struggled with too. List your successes and failures. And anything else that comes to mind.

You are looking for patterns. Themes that continue to pop up no matter what your circumstances. I know it can be hard to evaluate your past, especially when there’s pain and loss. But God can redeem anything that we hand over to Him.

Take a look at your list:

• Did you notice any patterns?
• Any recurring themes?
• Was there anything you repeated?
• What were your biggest struggles?

Using Your Spiritual Growth Plan to Move Forward

First, take some time to praise God for all the things He carried you through. Thank Him for the blessings He sent your way.

Second, look at the things you struggled with. Is there anything that you are still struggling with that you don’t want to drag around anymore? Pray and ask God to reveal what it is that He wants to free you from. That is often your focus for spiritual growth.

You cannot do all the things

There are many different things we can each do to grow spiritually. We don’t have time to do all the things! We have to be choosy! Pick a few things to make priorities and then give them everything you have.

In a season of raising children you may have to (temporarily) say no to missions work, serving on the worship team, or other ministry work. That doesn’t mean you can’t grow. It just means making your home and your family a priority.

Choose 3-5 priorities to focus on and then create goals around them.

Writing Down Your Spiritual Growth Plan

Do you make a grocery list when you need to go to the store?

Sometimes I do and sometimes I don’t. When I forget to write the list I always spend a lot of time trying to remember what I needed and I always forget something. When I take the time to write the list, I rarely use it but I also never get home without something I needed.

When we take the time to write things down we do a better job of sticking to it.

Write down your spiritual growth plan somewhere. You can use a journal, a sheet of paper, or even type it into a document on your computer. Just get it all together and written down somewhere you can look at it often.

Making it Official

1. Take some time to really put into words where you want to be spiritually at the end of this year. This will become your mission statement.
2. Write down your priorities and goals.
3. Each month, evaluate your progress so you can stay on track and make any necessary changes.

My Christian Agenda Planner is My Secret Weapon

My planner has become my secret weapon for staying on track. I have all my important dates and plans written down. My reading plans already penciled in.

I don’t have to wonder what I should read or study. I can just grab my Bible, journal, and planner and spend time with God.

The key to successful and consistent growth is having a plan. And this principle applies to every area of your life. If you want to hit a goal, develop new habits or establish new routines you have to have a solid plan. And then stick to it!

So many of you share your struggles with staying focused and being consistent. I totally get it. There are so many times when I want to do all these things for God but no matter what I do I can’t seem to make it happen.

Well, I finally found a way to overcome all of that.

My love for planners comes a close second to my love for journals. Both have been game changers for my faith and spiritual growth.

I’m pretty picky about what planner I use. I spend hours researching and checkings things out before I buy one. For years I have tried to use one planner for everything: work, homeschool, life and spiritual growth. I finally realized that wasn’t working for me.

I need something specifically for my spiritual growth plans so that I’m not distracted by all the things! That’s where the new agenda planners from DaySpring come in.

They were kind enough to send me a free planner to check out and use and I LOVE it! Here’s a sneak peak:

How to use your Christian Agenda Planner

I share a little about how setting BIG goals and breaking them down into more manageable tasks have really helped me be consistent with my quiet time and cross of my goals for the year.

Here’s a quick rundown of the process:

1. Set a BIG goal for the year. If there was one thing that you could accomplish when it comes to your faith what would be it?
2. Make a list of all the things that go with your goal. Books to read, Bible studies to work on, sermons to listen to, etc
3. Each month take 1-3 things from #2 and make those the focus of your month
4. Break those monthly goals down into weekly tasks
5. Take those weekly tasks and assign them to specific days.

For example, One of my goals is to read the entire Bible during the year my planning process might look like this:

1. Read the entire Bible in a year (all 66 books)
2. I need to read 5.5 books each month to reach my goal
3. Make a list of 5 books to read each month
4. I need to read about 1.5 books each week
5. Create a daily reading plan that covers 1.5 books each week

By breaking down our big goal we get rid of that feeling of overwhelm that can hinder our growth. When we take the time to break things down it becomes doable. One step at a time.

Having a planner is a great way to write your plans down. We are more likely to do something when we write it down. Plus we get the satisfaction of crossing things off the list when it’s complete …. and who doesn’t love that.

The new planners from DaySpring are perfect for this kind of planning. They are beautiful, lightweight and durable. So simple and easy to use and there are so many accessories if you really want to jazz it up.

Check out their collection right here.