How to Use This Season for Spiritual Growth

When I think back to this time in my life, I will want to know I invested in my spiritual growth, my nearness to Christ. We have an opportunity now to reinvent routines and rhythms, to shift our priorities and make space for things of eternal value. When we find our lives upended—whether by sheltering in place, transitioning out of a job, or moving to a new location—we can use the time to set new intentions for spiritual growth.

When I moved overseas in 2013, I found myself in one of those upended situations. I knew no one other than my husband, and during the day he worked, leaving me in our glossy new apartment for hours on end. Because I worked for a company in the US, the time difference meant I rarely talked with co-workers in real-time. I had large swaths of time and not much to fill it. Early on in the transition, I decided to use my time for growth by investing in Bible study, prayer, and connection with a local women’s group.

Right now, my home holds more bodies, and while I don’t find silent moments as often as I once did, I can still choose to be intentional about my pursuit of Jesus. A mentor once told me that each day we’re either moving closer to God or further away from him. I can’t find a verse stating those exact words, but I do recognize the truth in it from personal experience.

1. Preparing for the Days to Come

It’s spring now and new life blooms around us. During a spring season of life, it’s hard to imagine the colder weather, the scarcity of flowers, and the hardness of iced-over earth. The promise of warm weather stretches before us, but we know eventually the landscape will change. Spring spiritual seasons are times for cultivating our faith and growing our roots deep in the soil of biblical knowledge. Jesus tells us we will have trouble (John 16:33) so it’s wise to prepare.

2. Planning the Garden

A consistent intake of Scripture is necessary to the Christian life. If you haven’t yet established a practice of getting your eyeballs on God’s truth each day, I’d encourage you to do so. With that fundamental piece is in place, you may consider other spiritual activities to tend your soul. When you think of “spiritual growth” what comes to mind?

You might think of activities like:

• Rising early to read the Bible
• Finishing a study that’s sitting on your shelf
• Establishing an accountability partnership with a friend
• Starting a gratitude or prayer journal

These are admirable goals, and there are other spiritual disciplines that are worthy of our attention and action. But maybe the needs of your soul look more like being and less like doing. When you consider the spiritual growth you need in your life, one of these practices may bring life:

• Sitting quietly in the presence of God
• Taking a walk and basking in the beauty of God’s creation
• Closing your eyes and let hymns, classical music, or worship songs wash over you

Naming our priorities and needs helps us put plans in place to give them the time and energy they deserve.

And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God.

Colossians 1:10 NIV

3. Cultivating the Soil and Planting the Seeds

There’s a patch of soil in my backyard that desperately needs attention. It is sparse with grass and weeds. I can imagine its transformation with big groups of tulips covering the ground. I don’t know much about plants or gardening, but I do know it’s important to turn the tulip bulbs in the right direction. They need to be planted pointy-side up; otherwise, the plant will try to sprout down into the earth.

Similarly, we need to orient ourselves in the direction of desired growth—toward the Son. To grow in his direction, we intentionally point ourselves toward his light and let ourselves be captivated by the warmth and joy found in him.

It’s okay to ask God to help us love and desire him more. I do it all the time. The whole reason we’re able to love him at all is because he first loved us (1 John 4:19). We can be assured that a prayer for our hearts to want to know him is one aligned with his will for our lives.

John Piper says it this way: “Becoming a Christian not only means believing truth. It means finding a treasure. So evangelism becomes not only persuasion about truth but pointing people to a Treasure that is more valuable than everything they have.”

Seeing Jesus as the joy and treasure of our lives, our hearts behold his majesty, receive his instruction, and find strength to persevere in times of trouble.

You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

Psalm 16:11 ESV

4. Tending the Garden

Slow Sanctification

There is no fast, microwave solution to the Christian life. If there were, I would opt in. Wouldn’t you? Instead, the process of sanctification is bit by bit.

If you stared at my tomato plant seedlings, you’d never see them move, but over weeks and months we notice the change. So it is with spiritual growth. From one ordinary day to the next, we don’t necessarily see the pruning, the blooming, or the spiritual fruit bursting forth. But looking back on last quarter, last year, or the last decade, we should see that who we are now is not who we once were.

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

Galatians 5:22-23 ESV

While the fruit of the Spirit gives us confidence in our identity as a child of God, it’s not the ultimate goal. In fact, this is where my gardening analogy may come apart a bit. 

Satisfaction in Being

One of the things that comes to mind when I think about growth is goal-setting. And if you’ve read anything about setting or reaching goals, you’ll know there’s an element of measurement involved. You can’t know if you’ve met your goal unless it’s a measurable one. But in spiritual growth, being with God is the goal.

Yes, we strain ahead toward the destination of our eternal home, but we’re not in control of how or when that will happen. On this side of heaven, all we can do is be with God and allow him to do the growing.

There’s a thin line between disciplining ourselves in spiritual matters and in making discipline the end goal. He is the gardener and, unlike my gardening efforts which often result in wilted and lifeless things, his will is always accomplished.

When I spend time with a friend, I don’t have a goal in mind for that friendship. The goal is to be in the presence of that person, learning about her and sharing my own heart with her. I could measure how many texts, emails, and phone calls I send or receive from that friend, but really, that count doesn’t matter. I send the text or make the call because I’m excited to share, to know, and be known. Why is our relationship with God any different?

5. Enduring the Heat

This is how my gardening plans go every year. In the spring, my excitement builds. I buy the seeds, tend the soil, and carefully watch my little sprouts strain from the ground. Fast-forward three months and my little bed of a garden is running wild—weeds left to multiply, plants unpruned, even some produce unpicked and left to spoil in the sun. Why? The hot, stifling summer keeps me indoors. The relentless sun and humid conditions make me want to do anything but labor outside.

In our spiritual growth, we need to remind ourselves why the pursuit is worth it. In some seasons, we receive the rains of God’s presence and find life-giving truth at every turn of our Bible’s pages. But when another season comes, one that feels barren and silent with the sun’s scorching heat on our backs, what keeps us motivated in our pursuit of God? We need an answer to the foundational why.

In some seasons, we receive the rains of God’s presence and find life-giving truth at every turn of our Bible’s pages. When the season changes and the rains stop, what keeps us motivated in our pursuit of God? Click To Tweet

Here’s my why: we follow him in those hot, hard seasons because Jesus is a treasure and joy, infinitely worthy of our obedience and devotion. If we allow ourselves to be convinced of that truth, we’ll find there’s nothing else we can do in times of trial except to continue following, depending, and seeking him.

I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.

Philippians 3:8 NASB

6. Be Encouraged

My prayer for you today is that Christ will be of “surpassing value” to you, a treasure you long for more than anything else this world has to offer.

As you look around at the budding plants and blooming flowers this season, I hope you’ll consider your own soul. Are you in a place of growth, pressing onward toward the Son? If you are, I encourage you to continue and not lose heart. And if you find you’re not in a place of growth, take some time to evaluate what hinders you. I would love to come alongside you if there’s anything I can do to help you on this journey. Please let me know in the comments, or feel free to send me a message.

Question: How are you using this season to tend to your spiritual growth?