Crafting a Spiritual Development Plan: A Christian Counselor’s Advice

So, how is your relationship with God? Is it not what you want it to be? Do you feel like you struggle in trying to hear from God? Do you even wonder if you know Him at all? Do you know if He sees you or cares about you?

What about your life? Do you want to be further along than you are? Do you feel like the same struggles keep coming around? Do you long to be free of stress, anxiety, and depression? Have you tried everything and nothing seems to work?

We all face struggles in connecting with God at times and we all have struggles that can be overwhelming. However, we need to know there are things we can do about our situations. There is hope. What we need is a plan.

Putting into place a Spiritual Development Plan can be of great benefit. Here are a few examples of why it is important to have a plan to grow spiritually:

• Growing in our relationship with the Lord.
• Developing and maturing our Christian walk.
• Overcoming obstacles and struggles.
• Giving us confidence and a sense of self-worth.
• Helping us live a victorious life.

Plan…Process…Grow

Many things in life happen through a process. This process takes time. Growing plants from seed takes a process. Building a house takes a process. Starting a business is a process. Even growing as a human is a process. We must realize that our spiritual growth is no different. Spiritual growth not only takes time but to grow effectively, it needs a plan.

Many of us through no fault of our own have never been taught how to have a relationship with the Lord, live a Christian life, or grow spiritually mature. Somehow we think it is just supposed to happen. We struggle along praying and reading a devotional thinking this is how everyone else does it.

We may listen to a podcast or watch a video about how to deal with a particular struggle we are facing but do not know how to implement the information because we have no real understanding of how spiritual life works. It may be that all we need is a good plan to implement spiritual growth in our lives.

The Plan

So where do we begin? God desires that we grow into maturity. He has not left us here alone to figure things out. He has given us His Word (the Bible), His Holy Spirit, and a community of believers from which we can learn.

Below are some suggestions on how to get started building a Spiritual Development Plan that will help you to begin to grow in your relationship with the Lord and to overcome some areas where you have struggled for so long. This list is by no means exhaustive, but it is a good place to start.

God

The first step in our Spiritual Development Plan is to spend time with God and get to know Him. God tells us clearly where to begin our journey. He says in Matthew 6:33 that we need to seek Him first and then all other things will be added to us. God is to be first in our lives. The Bible also tells us in Matthew 22:37-38 that we are to love God with all of our heart, soul, and mind. This is the first commandment.

What God is telling us is that by putting Him first, we lay the only proper foundation on which to build everything else in our lives from our spiritual health to our finances to our relationships to whatever else concerns us. We have to put Him first. He alone knows the big picture. He knows everything about us. He knows all things period.

There is another aspect to seeking Him first and it is even more important than seeking guidance and wisdom. God wants relationship. He wants you! He loves you and it is His great desire to be with you. He wants you to know just how special you are to Him.

You are His great masterpiece. How will you ever understand this unless you spend time with Him? He wants you to know Him better. He wants you to understand just how truly great and awesome He is. He is more than capable of caring for you and the things that are of concern to you.

How do we get to know God better? The main way is to spend time in His Word which we will discuss later in this article. Another way is to take time each day to spend alone with Him. Put away the electronics and any other distractions to devote quiet time to listening and prayer.

It is good to take a journal with you to write down anything that comes to mind. Use this time to talk with Him as a friend to a friend. God is not impressed with formal prayers. He wants to have a relationship with you. Just speak to Him as you would a friend.

The Word

The second step in the Spiritual Development Plan is spending time in God’s Word. This takes time and intention. We must go to the Bible to get spiritual nourishment. Reading a devotional is not the same thing as reading from God’s Word every day. Reading devotionals may have their place but it is like sustaining your physical life on meal replacement smoothies.

Our bodies need real food to sustain, grow, and be healthy. We cannot survive on a daily meal replacement smoothie. If that is all we ingest then we are going to start incurring some health issues. We need all the minerals and vitamins that come from a well-balanced diet to live and live well.

It is the same with our spiritual health. We must go to the true source of our spiritual food. In it is all that we need for life, health, and walking in victory. A Bible study plan will help us find the spiritual nutrition we need to live today, set us up for success in life, and empower us for future trials.

How do we spend time in God’s Word? There are many reading plans out there as a quick Google search demonstrates. There are also some good Bible study methods out there. Again, a Google search will help you find one that works best for you.

However, I would like to recommend that you start reading somewhere in the Bible such as John or James. Both are easy to read. Take it a verse at a time. Read it and talk to God about it. Journal your thoughts and reflections.

Another place to start with Bible study is to take an issue that is dominant in your life currently. Take anxiety for instance. You can do an online search for Bible verses about anxiety and a list of verses will come up. Look up each of those verses and meditate on them.

You will also need to read the surrounding verses to get the context. Ask God to speak to you through them. Write down your reflections in a journal. You may even want to memorize those verses so you can find comfort and help in time of need.

Action

James 2:14-26 is best noted for the balancing of faith and works. The most famous of the verses found here is in verse 26 where it states, “Faith without works is dead.” Let’s unpack this.

In our natural day-to-day life, we understand this principle. Let’s say that we want to lose weight and get in shape. We devote a lot of time reading books, watching videos, and listening to podcasts to find the best options for us.

We do our due diligence in researching what will work best for our time, expectations, health, and lifestyle. We may even go a step further and buy the food, supplements, and exercise equipment. However, if we do not put into practice what we have learned, then what good is it going to do? The principle of James 2:26 comes into play. Faith without works is dead.

Whatever we believe has to be put into practice. This is where the real growth comes. In putting into practice what we have learned, we identify what works and what does not work. We find out what we are made of and what areas still need growth. We discover how strong we are in some areas and how weak we are in others. This becomes a time of discovery. Real growth can begin to happen through the process of working it out.

Faith in God and in His Word are no different. We must put into practice the truths we learn from our time alone with God and from His Word. These truths are designed to bring us into a closer relationship with God and to live a fuller, more abundant life wherein we walk in the freedom for which Christ died for us.

We will never know these things if all we do is read a devotional now and then. We must put into practice what we learn. It is in the doing that real transformation and growth can happen.

Others

We need to be in community. We need our people. We were not created to be alone. Sometimes it is far easier to be alone because of the hurt and abuse caused by others. We may even put our affections on other things in order to soothe our need to attach. But the truth remains that we are communal beings. We were created for connection.

It is God who created family and our need for others. This was our first place to learn about attaching to others. In a perfect world, we learn safety and security here. We also gain confidence and assuredness to face trials and struggles. We have a safe place to learn and grow with the maturity of caring and watchful caregivers. Community was God’s design and because it is His design, it is within each one of us to desire it and seek it out.

This is not the reality for so many of us though. Many have not had good experiences with the people in their lives for many reasons. The enemy of our souls gets at us long before we are even able to express ourselves verbally to destroy healthy attachments and we can spend the rest of our lives incapable of finding the love and security we so desperately long for. This step of the Spiritual Development Plan may be the most difficult for some for this very reason.

Regardless of how difficult it may seem, we still need people. Surrounding ourselves with others we can trust is to our benefit. This will take an intentional act to get out there and meet some people.

The best place to start is at church or through a local ministry that serves people whom you have a heart to help. Another way to get to know more people is to join a group with whom you have common interests. Looking online or on different social media sites will help you to connect with various groups.

Crafting and following a Spiritual Development Plan will be one of the most rewarding and challenging things you may do but the rewards could be beyond expectations. If you need help constructing a plan or if you are finding a particular area discussed in this article to be particularly difficult, please reach out to a Christian counselor for help. We would love to walk alongside you and help you reach your goals.