By Shelly Snead
My home is where plants come to die—not gracefully, but by total neglect.
While I appreciate the beauty and health benefits of flowers and flourishing plants, I lack the knowledge and discipline to keep them alive.
Years ago, I purchased a potted tomato plant, determined to become a gardener. I left it on my back deck and neglected to check on it until the end of that hot summer in North Carolina.
I was left with a shriveled plant and one emaciated tomato—a taunting reminder that growth requires intentionality, not just good intentions.
Our spiritual growth is similar.
We long for it to be a spontaneous, natural process. Unfortunately, we don’t drift toward godliness.
Intimacy with Jesus involves grace-based rhythms of meditating on God’s Word and responding to His voice of truth in prayer.
I use the phrase rhythms of grace rather than spiritual disciplines for a reason. While neither phrase is found in Scripture, our spiritual disciplines can easily morph into a check-box theology.
Our daily habits of connecting with God are based in grace. When we remember this, we’re more likely to approach these practices as a worshipful response to all God has done to meet us in His Word (Rom 12:2).
Stay Rooted Through Rhythms of Grace
While we often think of autumn as a season of harvest, it’s also a season of cultivating. Those spring blooms are a result of fall’s faithful labor.
The Master Gardener meets us for daily conversations of faith. As for His part of the process, the Lord gives us the desire and the power to remain deeply rooted in Him (Phil 2:10).
The foundational spiritual rhythms of meditating on the Bible and communicating with Him through prayer are vital to our spiritual flourishing, but they don’t just happen amid our busy schedules.
So how do we remain spiritually intentional with the whirlwind of life whizzing around us? Here are a few ideas to help us keep our plow to the ground.
1 – Wake up to worship.
Set the stage each day by declaring God’s faithfulness.
The Jewish people of Jesus’ day had a special tradition (still carried out today) called berakhot, which simply means “blessing”—tiny prayers offered throughout the day to keep one’s eyes fixed on God.
Upon opening their eyes in the morning, a Jew might’ve said, “Blessed is he who gives sight to the blind.” Or when getting dressed, they may’ve declared, “Blessed is he who clothes the naked.”
In the first moments of our day, acknowledge God’s power, provision, and purpose with each task we complete.
2 – Prepare a plan, a place, and a period of time.
We can’t leave connecting with God to chance or whenever an unexpected break appears in our schedule. Consistent spiritual rhythms involve planning.
To give your spiritual life an environment for growth, consider the following:
- Choose a plan – Read through a book of the Bible, a few verses or chapters a day.
- Pick a place – Find a place to minimize distractions. Perhaps this means turning a chair around so it doesn’t face the piles of laundry or the laptop awaiting your attention.
- Select a time – Pick a time window with the best chance for no interruptions, but allow for grace when life happens.
3 – Consider whom you’re encountering.
We have the privilege of uniting with more than just a book. We can commune with the God of the universe because of the costly gift of His Son through the power and presence of the Holy Spirit!
The Bible gives us a beautiful picture of what happens as we make God’s Word our delight by meditating on it and communing with Him. We become like trees planted along the rich soil of the river, bearing fruit in season, and with leaves that never wither (Ps 1:3).
4 – Acknowledge your season.
Different chapters warrant different choices.
Now that I’m an empty nester, I love getting up early in the mornings to meet with God as Jesus did (Mk 1:35).
But I remember the days my children woke me up, vying for my attention and supervision. In that season, I spent less time alone in God’s Word and more time planting seeds of truth in my kids between whispered prayers for power and provision.
In Matthew 25, Jesus told His disciples the parable of the talents. Jesus praised the stewards who invested their talents (or resources) over the one who buried his.
Our Creator entrusted us with the resource of time.
While our neighbor might be in a five-talent season, we might be in a one-talent season. We’re called to invest the time, energy, and capacity we possess into our relationship with Jesus—not the time, energy, or capacity He gave to someone else.
Cultivating Our Faith
We all want to be a vibrant, thriving tree rooted by streams of living water, not the forgotten, emaciated tomato plant from my sun-scorched back deck.
We must choose the Lord above the noise of our busyness for the cultivation of our souls. Think through practical ways to stay rooted in close fellowship with God today.
God grants us the gift of sowing, promises to water our souls, and creates new life from our intentional seeds of faith.
Shelly Snead
Shelly Snead is a published author, speaker, Contentment Coach, and host of the podcast UnPerfect: Biblical Truth for Everyday Women. She lives in North Carolina with her husband, where they enjoy family game nights with their four adult children and daughter-in-law. When she’s not searching for her keys, Shelly enjoys date nights, eating chocolate, and keeping Starbucks in business. Find her at shellysnead.com and Substack.
