When God Doesn’t Give the Map: Learning to Walk by Faith

It's about you and your relationship with your father. Who loves you more than anybody else does. Right. You're talking to somebody who loves you more than anybody else does. Hello there. You're listening to the Girl Talk Podcast. My name is Carol. I'm Kelly. I'm Tricia. And we're so glad you've joined us today. We're going to be talking about how to develop a spiritual roadmap. Now, before you go away and say, I don't even know what a spiritual roadmap is. Good news is we're going to tell you. Spiritual roadmap. How would you guys define that? This is not like something you go to MapQuest and put in a direction. It just tells you all the things. That is not. And then you print it out. But I'm glad that you mentioned that because it is a lot like that. If you were going on a trip somewhere and you wanted to figure out how to get there, you would type in your destination, right? And then it would give you directions. How many? Different ways you could go to this certain place. All the paths. Yeah. I think that's the problem with especially our spiritual lives is that we know where we want to end up, but we don't necessarily know the steps to get there. Right? Yeah. That's an interesting thought. I think part of it is we don't even necessarily know where we want to end up. That's kind of what I thought, too. I don't find myself reflecting on that enough. Right. Yeah. Well, we all would say, I want to be better. You know, I mean, when you start your year, a lot of people will say, I want to be, you know, more fit in this year or I want to be I want to eat healthier this year. I want to do. But unless you put together a plan for that, you're not going to get there. And that's what I mean by plan. We all would say, I want to pray more this year or I want to read my Bible more this year. I want to do this or that. Be a better Christian. Right. But we don't know how to get there because we don't have practical things that we can put in place in our lives to kind of get there. That's so interesting because I have never you're making me think about this in a completely different way. Can I kind of think about the spirituality and my my particular journey in just more of a amorphous way, like not a practical step by step way. But but that you're questioning that. That's I think you are 100 percent on most people who don't really think. And honestly, I hadn't really given it much thought until. So this time last year, our team spent a team day kind of at the beginning of our year. And we had a personal spiritual retreat is what I'm going to call it. And we had a gentleman who came and led us through some different exercises and he recommended a book. And I bought this book. It's called Spiritual Disciplines Handbook. And I started going through that book and realizing that for so much of my life, I thought that if I just. Did what I know to do, for instance, read the Bible. And pray and go to church and tithe and whatever else. If I did all those things, I would grow in my faith. But that isn't necessarily true. There are areas in my spiritual life where I need to grow more than others, just like in our personal lives. You know, you exercise quite a bit. You love to exercise. I need to exercise more. You know, those kinds of. And for me, I had never given thought to the areas where I'm weakest. You know, and I think that's the most important step, actually, of creating this roadmap that we're talking about is analyzing and looking at where you are now. Right. Really doing an assessment. Where do I feel like my spiritual life is? Where do I feel like my relationship with Jesus is? Where do I feel like my spirit, my commitment to spiritual disciplines are? Where do I where do I find joy? Where do I find joy? Where do I find growth? Where do I find fulfillment? And where do I want to go then? And I will say this, that spiritual disciplines handbook has a little test in the back of it that you take and answer questions. And it gives you I think I think it gives you breaks down the three areas that you need to work on. And then it points you to places in the book where you can go and actually read through that discipline or whatever and see things that might work for you. So it gives you suggestions. I think that's a good point. And I think that's probably part of the the problem for most of us spiritually is that outside of the normal things that they would tell you to do when you become a new believer. OK, you need to find a church. OK, you need to read your Bible every day. OK, you need to pray every day. We don't have a good plan for developing those things in us. And so. What would you say to someone who is like, OK, I understand this concept of having a roadmap. In order to grow spiritually. But what is next? What would you say you would suggest to do next to do next after after you realize, hey, yeah, I am I do need to to grow in this area of spirituality. How do how do I do that? Yeah, I think one of the things you mentioned earlier was having a really good Bible believing church. And I think every every good believer needs to be in a Bible believing church. Yeah. Yeah. Right. And we need to be surrounded with godly women who are ahead of us. You know, I'm thinking about some of the women who I love most, who are the most interesting to me right now. And I just I think. What happened? So there's a giggling going on. Yes, there is. Out of the corner of my. I just see some like shadow over my left shoulder. And I didn't know what it was. The Terminix. It was the Terminix man right there. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I didn't even see it. So to get back to the circle back to where we were. Yeah. I think it's important that we have good godly women, especially around us, who can disciple us, who can mentor us, who we can look at and go, OK, I I see the fruit in her life. Right. And I want to have fruit. That's kind of. Kind of similar to her fruit. Like when I think about godly women, she's the woman who comes to mind. You know, how do I become more like her? Right. And ask her, you know, what did what have you done in your life to become to, you know, to get to know Jesus better, to do to walk with him closer? Yeah. What's what's been your plan or way you've handled that? And then get some advice from her. That's exactly what I did for years and years and years and years and years ago. I. I saw a woman who lived out prayer in a way that I had never seen really somebody live it out before. Like. I was around people who would say, oh, have you prayed about it? Do you pray about it? But I got to see up close in her life. I mean, like prayer was like breathing for her. And I went to her and I said, hey, the prayer is the part of my life, my spiritual life where I feel the weakest. And I feel like you. I feel like you have a really a really healthy prayer life. Tell me some things. And she it was honestly very humbling because she said, really, you think I have a strong prayer life? So she didn't necessarily see it in herself, but it just becomes so much of the rhythm of her life that that's. Exactly what I saw, like it just been. And she said, you know what I would tell you? If if you want to get better at prayer, pray more. And I was like, that is so easy and so practical. And so, you know what? I have a reminder set on my phone that every day goes off at a morning time, a midday time and an afternoon time or actually it's more of an evening time. And so it just reminds me, it prompts me. There are there are days where I miss it. Yes. And there are days when I pray all day long because I'm there's a. Circumstance or something that I'm I'm praying about, but it has given me this time, this reminder in my day to where that almost becomes second nature. Right. Yeah. So what I love that statement you made about if you want to get better at praying, then pray more, pray more, pray more, because it's not the case with everything we do. We want to get better at eating better. We'll eat, eat better and then you'll get better at it. The more you do, you want to get better at tennis, play more tennis. Right. Yeah. Yeah. That's so good. You want to get better at praying. Just do it. Yeah. Pray more. And I and I think one of the things that we do as Christians is that we think that our prayer has to sound a certain way. I remember when I was a new believer and I was being discipled. One of the things that I would listen to other people pray and I'd be like, man, that's just that sounds so good, you know, and I want to sound good. It's not about sounding good. It's about a relationship. It's about totally trusting the one that you're talking to. And we can do that comparison thing like I don't want to pray out loud because I don't sound as good as she does or it's not about that. It's about you and your relationship with your father, you know, loves you more than anybody else. Right. And you're talking to somebody who loves you more than anybody else. Yeah. I liken it to I'm a I was a bad daddy's girl. Bad daddy's girl. Like I went to my dad for everything. He made me laugh. If I didn't do something that pleased him, it made me cry. You know, all the things. And I've never once went to him and said, my father, who art in this household, you know, like I was never a formal, right. It was always climbing up in his lap or putting my arms around his neck or around his waist and saying, daddy, I need your advice on this. And that's just what prayer is, right? Yeah. I think the more we learn about God, the more we learn how much he wants that relationship with us. Yeah. Yeah. And I love that idea, too, of setting an alarm to remind yourself because it's so easy to get out of the habit. Yeah. But if you have an alarm, at least you're being reminded. You know, I think that's part of why we're reminded to pray before meals, that it's about a habit. It's about reminding ourselves to stop and have a, even if it's quick, conversation with the father to say thank you for all of our blessings. But having a reminder on our phone, having some sort of, you know, ton of touch points during the day where you're like, okay, I need to reconnect. I need to reconnect with the father. Yeah. And because we need it. And I was going to say regarding the spiritual roadmap, I think godly friends for sure. And rhythms. That's kind of the word I like. Maybe you, Carol, or you, Kelly, I'm not sure. Somebody gave me that word rhythms instead of like a routines. It's more rhythms that we put in place in our day to remind us. To connect with God and different rhythms like a prayer reminder. That's great. For me, a rhythm that I've put into place is I'm doing a Bible recap podcast to read the Bible in a year. And so it's a daily reminder to do it. And I have a little thing on my phone that goes off to remind me to do it. By the way, if you're looking for a Bible reading plan in a year, this thing is outstanding. It is the best that I have had for me personally. I love it. The Bible recap podcast. And there's a lot of resources that go along with it. And I'll tell you. So my son, Daniel, he's 16 and he's been wanting to take steps down his roadmap. He's been wanting to grow closer to God. And so he started reading his Bible, but he didn't know where to read. Yeah. And so he would just and I appreciated his heart so much because he'd sit down there and he'd he's like, I'm reading Mark. And he'd read and he'd get through it. And he's like, I didn't really know. I didn't really get. I didn't know much from it. And I appreciated his honesty. Right. That's I've been there, too. And so after he kept trying that and doing different things, I told him, get on this Bible recap podcast. They do it for a Bible in a year, but they also do it for a book at a time. And so he started Proverbs with the Bible reading podcast. And why I'm mentioning that is because you not only read some of the Bible, there is a podcast that's about six minutes long where she explains her name. She explains what she's getting from it. She kind of helps recap from it. And then she points up God in it. She calls it her God shot. And this is important because when I read the Bible, when I'm not thinking about it, I think, oh, this is about me. But the Bible is about God. Right. And so she forces you to think of a God shot, a moment where you're getting something about God, not just something for me to live my day better. But what what can I learn? What can I learn about God? And so that's been helpful. And he's really getting a lot out of it now. That's good. So having somebody and I will say this, though, you don't want all of your Bible study to be getting spoon fed from someone else. Right. But we're all on different places on our path. Right. For him, this is really helpful for him. Yeah. Because it's not telling him everything he's reading, but it's giving him some suggestions and thoughts and ways to think about what he's reading. And that's been true. For me as well. So it's you want to learn and read the Bible for yourself. But this is a great way to kind of help understand it. Yeah, I love that. And if you are at a point where you want to dig into Scripture deeper, I would say Anne Graham Watts has some of the best resources that I've run across in my spiritual life. In fact, I remember she came to Charlotte with I think it was she called it the Just Give Me Jesus tour where she was doing arenas and stuff. And she came to Charlotte and she taught. This Bible study method and it's on her website, just Google and Graham lots and and she it has three questions that you ask yourself and she goes through step by step on how to do that. There's a video on her website. I've I've sent that video to so many people because it does just that it helps you to read the Bible and ask yourself questions about the text and do a little deeper research. That is excellent. If you haven't seen that, go get that. I've also discovered another. Another resource, I think it's called the James method. Have you guys seen this? I've seen it's like flooding my Facebook page, but I haven't. So it's it's I somebody gifted me one of the the journal. It's like a journal, but it has these circles written on it. And so basically you you you put the circle that you're the big circle. You put the verse that you're studying. So you take a verse and you put it in there and then you pull out words. Uh, that, that stick out to you in that scripture. And then you go to some kind of Bible resource. If you have those, I love blue letter, bible.org. Um, I go to that and, and look up the original, um, meaning of the word. And that's real simple to do. You go on there and then you write it in the little circles around that, and then you break it down further and it asks for context and when it was written and you can find all those resources online. There's a ton of those, um, but that helps you put a verse in context, uh, to, to really figure out what the real meaning of the verse is. And then it also gives you, uh, some, uh, correlating verses. And then there's a point where you, where you talk, you list out what the verse says about God and what the verse says about me and you. And, um, then you end up with a prayer. So it's a way to work through some scripture and it gives you lots of, um, opportunities to learn. And I really like that as well. Um, I know you love to, you love, uh, the journal coloring. Oh yeah. The coloring pages. In fact, I just, um, bought, I have a 18 year old, um, in my life, uh, a friend of a daughter of a friend, um, who just graduated from high school. And I bought her, um, some coloring book, a coloring book that was all nothing but scripture. I was like, if you're going to go out into the world, this is what you need. You need to like. Uh, meditate on this scripture as you're coloring, um, a picture that's around it. So, um, yeah, I just, I love the idea of just dwelling with, uh, sitting with one scripture and really talking to the Lord about it and seeing what it is that he's got for me in that one scripture. Um, but I love to color. Yeah. Works out well. I will say another thing that I learned, um, from, uh, Donald, uh, Whitney's spiritual disciplines book. Um, another great resource for you. Um, but he talks about reading a scripture and then reading it again, then reading it again and listing out 10 things that you learn from that verse. And it's, it just, it's a simple exercise. Um, but it helps you to kind of really think and I use, use the word dwell. And I love that word because I think sometimes we just read the verse of the day and we're like, okay, move on. Let's go to something else. Um, and, and this is a, a way for you to just kind of drill down and look. And the other, I feel like I have a ton of resources cause I've been working at this like I feel like my whole life, the scribe Bible journals, another great resource. And we've mentioned it on here on the podcast before, but same thing. You take a scripture, what are you observing the scripture, something you learn a prayer and then the things that you're thankful for. So it ties all that gratitude and Bible study into one. So, so the spiritual disciplines that you were talking about. We, we talked about prayer. We talked about reading the Bible. What was the third one that was in that book? Uh, there's a, there's a ton of them. Oh, there. Oh, okay. Yeah. There's a ton of them. Like, but it gives you three areas that you are, when you, when you take the spiritual disciplines handbook, I think the test in the back gives you the three that you score the lowest in. And then it points you to resources in the book where you can go and find disciplines that might work for you to help you to grow in that area. So it gives you like a test and then a plan to point back to the, to the resource of the book. It's really good. Yeah. Um, I have gleaned so much from each one of them, but it's, it's, I can't recommend that resource highly enough. Yeah. Well, you know, and I would think too, just about creating a roadmap and what I, where I want to go, what I want to do, like you mentioned before, at the very beginning, we all want to grow to look more like Jesus, you know, that's the end goal is to be, um, um, not a better version of ourselves, but to, uh, look more like Jesus. And the best way we can do that is by spending time with him. Um, and there's all kinds of ways we can spend time with him, but spending time with him in his word, spending time with him in prayer, spending time in worship, you know, that's one of my favorite things to do is to just sit and listen to worship music and then you let it be a prayer, you know, let the song be something that is a prayer back to him and, um, sitting in silence. I think we've talked about that before. As such a great discipline of, um, getting to know him more so that we can be in better and deeper relationship with him. Yeah. But I think that's the bottom line is we've got to be we've got to be more be with him more so that we can know him more so we can be in better relationship with him. Right. I love that. That's absolutely accurate. And I'm going to put a plug in for something I think that I've learned has been really powerful, which is memorizing scripture. Oh, yeah. Good. Yeah. Because I really have found, at least for me, and I think it's true that God speaks to us through his word when we have it memorized. So you're going through your day and a situation comes up like this happened to me actually not that long ago. I I had a moment where I felt like I was maybe going to have an anxiety attack. Like I felt really nervous about something. It kind of triggered me and I started to feel really unhinged. And then I just started repeating a promise from God's word. Cast all your cares on him because he cares for you. And that's a memory. That's one I memorized a long time ago. But I felt like that was God's promise meeting me. Right. In the middle of my problem. Sure. And there is a promise from God for every problem that we face. And so when we memorize it, when we know it, he can bring it to our mind. The Holy Spirit can remind us of that in that moment. So learning God's word, even the smaller pieces of it, can be such a wonderful way where God can speak to you. And I know it's happened for me. So taking time to read it. We've talked about dwelling on it and then also committing it to memory. And that can be through. Writing it down or saying it over and over again. Sometimes the songs help us do that. A lot of the songs are biblically sound. They'll have those promises in there or posting it up so that you can see it. But memorizing scripture is one really great way to to to hear from God. And for those of us who love video games or like playing on our phone, that kind of thing. Yeah, there's an app for that that will help you memorize scripture by playing a game with it. Where you have you have the scripture and then like step one, they take away like 10 percent of the words and you've got to fill in all the fill in the 10 percent of words. And then step two, when you get a little bit better at it, it takes away, you know, 40 percent of the words and you're left with, you know, lots of these and A's and you're like, oh, I don't remember what word goes here. And so you just play this game kind of over and over and over again to to commit the scripture to memory. And it's great. Yeah, it's a great way to. It's a great way to to memorize a long passage because you you just kind of builds upon each other. It's called Versus. It's just a there's an app for that. So for those of us who like to play video games, I love it. I want to memorize the armor of God. Like, I want to really commit that to memory. I pray every day for the helmet of salvation. But that is a powerful part of scripture. Yeah. Look at and read over and hopefully memorize. Yeah. I will say accountability is really important, too, especially as you get started. Because it's not going to be easy. I mean, just like, you know, if you start working out or you have your muscles get sore and you think, oh, I'm going to skip today or I'm going to take a day off. I'm going to have a rest day, which are fine. But then you need somebody to kind of get you back on track and help you. Yeah. A coach to help you get there. And that is so powerful in accountability. So I would say that's another another piece. Anything else that you girls would add? Well, I think I'm just on a practical. level, talking about rhythms for myself, really trying to nail down a time and a place where I carve out time for myself to spend with God has been helpful instead of just kind of letting it happen when it happens. But really kind of having kind of that mental appointment with myself to spend with God that really helps me follow through. Yeah. Yeah. It's got to be intentional. I think that's a big piece of it is that you don't get in the car and just go, okay, well, where are we going? Where's our roadmap? We're just going to go wherever we go, you know, self-driving car, right? Yeah. I hope I end up somewhere good. I think we've talked about before you've said, you know, no one drifts into holiness. You don't drift, drift into looking like Jesus. You got to be intentional about it and really have to take some active steps. And so blocking time and saying, I'm going to be intentional that the first 30 minutes of my day, I give to the Lord, or I always take a break over lunch and go for a walk and do nothing but pray out loud to the father. Whatever. Yeah. I think you, and I love that word intentional, but not legalistic. Yes. Yeah. Because I think one of the things that I do, especially is when I set a plan, I'm like, okay, I'm going to every day, I'm going to get up and spend my first hour with the Lord. Undoubtedly, something's going to happen and I'm not going to be able to do that one day. And instead of just picking right back up where I left off, I say, well, I didn't do it perfectly. So why even do it at all? Wrong attitude to have, just give yourself grace and just start again, you know, just give yourself grace and start again. And I think that's important to remember in any kind of spiritual discipline that you're starting or trying to continue grace, grace, grace. God would want you to give yourself grace and he gives you grace abundantly. So if you have ideas or tips that work for you and you've grown spiritually, we'd love to hear all about them. You're welcome to email us at girltalkatthelightfm.org. We always love it whenever you send emails because we just absolutely love hearing from you. And before you leave, don't forget to like and subscribe so that every single episode will come straight to you as soon as we release it. And whenever you make a comment, it helps other people to learn about the Girl Talk podcast, not so they can get to know us, but so they can get to know Jesus, because that is the entire reason we do this. And we're going to save you a seat next time we gather around these microphones for the next Girl Talk podcast. We'll see you then.