Episode 3 – Make it Personal

After exploring the theology and practice of intimacy with God, it's time to get real. In this episode, our panel of pastors opens up about their own spiritual journeys, sharing honest stories about the disciplines that have shaped their walks with God.

You'll hear which practices first became meaningful in their lives and why, what their current rhythms look like, and how those rhythms have changed over time and through different seasons. They'll share the disciplines that have been most formative for their intimacy with God—and vulnerably discuss the ones they still struggle with.

This isn't a polished, picture-perfect conversation. It's real pastors talking about real life—the wins, the struggles, the adjustments, and the grace that carries us through it all. You'll discover how spiritual disciplines have deepened not just their knowledge about God, but their actual relationship with Him, and how that intimacy has shaped the way they shepherd others.

If you've ever felt stuck, inconsistent, or weighed down by guilt when it comes to spiritual practices, this episode offers the encouragement you need. Our panel speaks directly to the tension between discipline and legalism, offering practical wisdom and hope for anyone wanting to begin—or begin again.

Join us for an honest, hope-filled conversation that reminds us: pursuing God isn't about perfection. It's about presence.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome to the WB Chunk Life, the official podcast of the West Virginia Ministries of the Church of God. This is the place where faith and life meet in practical, meaningful ways. Each episode, you'll hear teaching and conversations designed to equip pastors, encourage churches, and inspire believers across our state and beyond. This is the WV Chog Pod.

SPEAKER_03 0:31

Thank you so much for checking out the W.V. Chog Pod. I'm Scott Behaum, the Associate Pastor of Church Health and Expansion here in West Virginia. I'm joined by Pastor Mitchell Birch, who is our state pastor, Pastor Jenny Lawrence, who is our associate state pastor of Christian education. In this episode, we have with us also Justin Davis, who is our Associate State Pastor of Administration. And this is episode three of a series that we've been talking about spiritual intimacy. We talked about a theology of intimacy. We talked about pursuing intimacy and what that looks like. And so we thought for this third installment of the podcast that we would make it a little bit more personal and maybe just let you all peek behind the curtains in as far as what it looks like for each of us, maybe what some of our journeys have looked like when it comes to pursuing spiritual intimacy, how we balance being a pastor, finding spiritual intimacy, because that can be a real challenge when you essentially study the Bible a lot for your job. Then you go, well, and then I'm supposed to have this personal time with it as well. And how do we make all of that fit with busy schedules and kids and other commitments that come up? So we're going to talk a little bit on the practical side of that. Just before we get going, though, we do want to ask you, make sure that you like and share this, subscribe, make sure that you share this with other people and let them know if this is a blessing to you. Leave a comment down below as well. So as we get into our talk today of how we make pursuing spiritual intimacy personal, we'll start with this question. Which discipline of all the spiritual disciplines was the first um thing that became really meaningful in your walk with God? Because I assume all of us, we probably started small and it's kind of grown as as we have progressed in our relationship with the Lord. So uh let's start with Justin. What did your walk with the Lord or pursuing intimacy with the Lord look like? Uh what was the first discipline that really kind of got a hold of your heart?

SPEAKER_01 2:37

So I became a believer in Jesus Christ when I was a junior in in high school, and he did such a work in my my life that I wanted to know more about God, and I was eager to to serve him and to tell other people about him. And one of the things that I desire to do because of this eagerness that I had in wanting to know him better and to be able to serve him was to just read his word, to dig into scripture, to know what scripture said, because I knew I had been told that it had the information that I needed on how to live the Christian life and what God desired for me. And so that was the big thing for me initially was just digging into God's word so that I knew what He wanted for my life and for how to live out this faith. And I had so many questions, and I can remember going to my Sunday school teacher at the church I was attending, and my youth group leader at the time, as I was digging into God's word and and just coming to them with these questions to get more information and and their take on and the interpretation of those passages that I was digging into as a new believer, and so for me that was really the first discipline that became super meaningful and and and impactful in my own walk with the Lord. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:59

What about you, Jenny? What was the first thing that really impacted your walk with the Lord? Which discipline?

SPEAKER_02 4:04

Definitely reading scripture. Um and then I'll say this that at first I was just reading, trying to get all these answers. I need all these answers, I need to understand. I've got all these questions. I'll echo what Jay uh Justin said. But um, and then there was a point that I tried to read scripture, like for me, like what does God say to me in speaking to me? And then um then I realized that that made it feel a little different because the more mature and the more you learn, like scripture, you read it to learn about God and and to have you know to what does what does this reveal about him, what does this say about him, what is it teaching me? And so um just seeing really everything came alive. Like I really feel like I learned to discern his voice by reading scripture. I learned to discern his will, his direction, and all of those things. So out of every discipline, um, nothing could replace scripture.

SPEAKER_03 5:02

What about you, Pastor Mesh?

SPEAKER_04 5:03

Well, having grown up in the church from uh infancy, um I I knew that scripture was the important read in my life. Um and I'd read a lot of scripture from the time I could read. Um but I uh my and my dad always said, read scripture for volume. Read read as much scripture as you can and and log it, log it. Put it in your cerebral cortex and let it soak. And when you need it, you may not have a copy of scripture in your hand, but when you need it, if it's in there, the Holy Spirit will reveal it and it'll come out. That's why I took that admonition seriously, and I I read, read, read. But simultaneously with that, I also had a desperate need to talk to God. I I I I felt like prayer was probably what I needed most. I I needed to have conversations with God. I needed to know that God heard me, I needed to know that God would was listening to me. So prayer became a central part of what I do as a believer.

SPEAKER_03 6:07

Yeah. Yeah, so my my personal journey with everything is that the the disciplines of prayer and Bible study, even though I knew the importance of them, they kind of lagged behind for a long time. Um whereas probably the most meaningful discipline for me early on, I don't even know that I thought that I was uh encountering God or thought that this was a discipline, but as I look back, I would say it was worship for me. And again, I can't sing, can't play an instrument, but there's always a concert going on in my car. Um and that was immediately very beneficial. It was through music that I really connected with God early on because again, the rest of that stuff really lagged behind for me, as I'll share um throughout this episode. Um, but yeah, so worship became really impactful for me right out of um the gate. So let's go back around um in this time. Let's just pull back the curtain. Um, don't give us the answer that everybody expects you to have if it's not um you know exactly how it looks. But what does your um daily or weekly, monthly, yearly rhythms of pursuing intimacy with God, what does it actually look like? Is it seasonal? Do you see it like some weeks is different than others? Um, what does it actually look like for you right now? We'll start with Pastor Mitch.

SPEAKER_04 7:28

Well, my intimacy with the Father uh is really initiated early in the morning. I I am a rather early riser, and I can get in his word, I can pray, I can meditate, I can think better earlier in the morning before my day gets clouded with all the hectic pace and and uh the other concerns of life and responsibilities of ministry and life. So I I try to spend some significant time each morning, and I and I've been doing that for many, many years. Um in my Bible reading uh program, if you please, is I I was told as a young Christian to read a psalm a day, a proverb a day, and read some of the gospels a day. So I try to read a psalm a day. I don't I mean, I'm 65 years old. I was probably told that when I was 12 years old, and I I've been trying to do it. I'm not I haven't been perfect at it by any stretch of the imagination, but I but I've tried to do that, and I have found, it's incredible, but I have found that often, not always, but often, the psalm of the day, the proverb of the day, and even the gospel of the day, the the text of the gospel of the day will sync up with incredible, incredible symmetry. Uh it it just happens. And you say, well, how does the Psalms and the Proverbs sink? Well, believe me, all the word sinks if the Spirit is prompting it. And uh so I I do that every day, just devotionally. I don't do that to study scripture for sermonization. That's a whole different topic and subject. We'll cover it a later, later, later uh episode. But but just my personal life, prayer and Bible reading in the morning just gets my day started, energized, jump started, however you want to say it. Jenny?

SPEAKER_02 9:16

It's different for me daily, seasonally. Um, I'll just give you the last week. So um, especially being a mom, having to get up and still do the morning routine. I don't get that cup of coffee and sit down for an hour or so.

SPEAKER_04 9:29

But retirement is about looking forward to it, brother.

SPEAKER_02 9:34

So I get up and usually there's a song on my heart or my mind. I get up, I walk through the kitchen, I say, hey, Google stream air one, let's go. And I start with worship. So the house is filled with worship, it's on my heart, it's on my mind, and I just start worshiping the Lord. Uh, we usually worship on our way to school, so on and so forth. And then once I get the quiet time, that's when I'll lean into prayer. Um, and the last week, though, like I said, it's seasonally, it depends. Um, on Friday, I had a funeral, it was really taxing. Um, and I'm a communicator, so typically, you know, I like to communicate, talk to the Lord. I talk all the time. Like the talking nonstop to me is there's a thought, and I'm like, all right, Lord, what do you think about this? What do you want me to do? You know, just being in nonstop, constant prayer and communication. But um, at that time on Friday, I was tapped out of words, tapped out, and I had a three-hour drive to um the youth convention, and I just wanted to sit in silence. I wanted to sit in silence and let the Holy Spirit refill me. And so sometimes it looks like silence in the car where I could be worshiping and I could be praying, but I had none of those things. And so sometimes it's a moment to be refilled. And silence that was very um healing and and filling me for the next thing that I had to do, and sometimes it's worship. Um, other days it is prayer because I need to talk through things. I'm a verbal, you know, I'm a that's a processor and communicator, so sometimes it is, Lord, we're gonna have to have this conversation between now and where I'm going. I need to talk this through to you.

SPEAKER_01 11:05

What about you, Justin? What's it look like for you? So the first thing I do every day when I get up, when I open my eyes, is just begin conversation in prayer with God. And one of the things that was really helpful for me in growing in intimacy with the Lord was learning that prayer isn't necessarily just uh a a one and done thing, but for your own personal intimacy, that prayer is just this ongoing conversation with God throughout the whole day. And so when I began doing that, it really impacted me in a significant way. And so as soon as I open my eyes in the morning, I just start talking to God and letting him know how thankful I am for the day that he's allowed me to have and to start asking for his help with the things that I know I'm going to encounter in the day and to ask him to help me to have victory over temptations that I might face that day. And then shortly thereafter, after getting up, I dig into God's Word. And the thing that is helpful for me is utilizing the UVersion Bible app. And I'll select plans that are are of interest maybe for something that I'm going through at the time, or I might also select a plan that I can do with some other believers. One that helps build in that accountability, knowing that, hey, we're doing this Bible reading plan together, and at the end of each day's reading, there's going to be a place where I've got to comment on what what I've read, and so that helps keep me accountable to make sure that I do it, knowing that someone else is going to see whether I've done it for the day or not. And so for me, those two things are kind of how I I start my day in in prayer and then in digging into God's Word, and that's what really helps me.

SPEAKER_03 12:51

Excellent. Um, yeah, for me, um, this is spiritual disciplines has been something that I've struggled with because I'm not in uh in some areas of my life intensely disciplined, and a lot of areas of my life not intensely disciplined. Um and so this was an area in my faith journey that really lagged behind for a really long time. Um and what I have actually found is that the less rigid I can be with myself, the more my desire um to connect with the Lord grows. Um because, and and this isn't on our list of questions, so forgive me for throwing this in on you. I think throughout my time as a kid in church, growing up in the church, and then um going through seminary and being around the church and and everything, it feels like spiritual disciplines ends up being a weight a lot of times that people put on you. Um, that almost feels that if you can't um attain to a certain level, um, then you are somehow lesser than, right? Um, Pastor Mitch, will you talk to the importance of personal spiritual disciplines not being something that we're that we do out of let's say obligation, but rather how does something that is a discipline um and almost like a duty end up becoming desire over time?

SPEAKER_04 14:18

That's a great question. Um it it it hits at the heart of this whole series, it's about intimacy.

SPEAKER_03 14:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 14:26

When you're intimacy intimate with the Father, those obligations and those um expectations are not at the forefront. It's relationship. So if we can get ourselves to where relationship with God, looking forward every night to waking up every morning to have a conversation with God, that takes the that takes the whole judgment off. It's not something I have to check off, it's not it's not something I have to do, it's something I get to do. It's something that I long to do. And I think that should be the goal of every believer. And honestly, just to be honest, I I'm not there every morning. There there are there are some mornings I get up and I don't feel like it, but I I press myself to do it most of the time. But the moments that are most dynamic and most personally fulfilling, if you please, is when I get up longing to have a conversation, get up longing to look at the word. What's he going to show me today? That's what I believe intimacy is, and so somehow we have to get it, we we have to do our best to get there. That's the point.

SPEAKER_03 15:36

Yeah. Jimmy, do you feel personal pressure as a pastor that your pursuit of God is supposed to look a certain way? Because when you go through um, you know, studying this and that, and you read about John Wesley and his pursuit of the Lord, and you read all these different people that we get exposed to, as a pastor, do you feel more pressure that, oh, it's supposed to look like this? Um, and if so, how do you break out of that pressure? Because I think that for a lot of people, they feel a lot of pressure that, well, Pastor Mitch gets up every morning and he's he does it this way, and so now maybe I'm supposed to do it this way. And how how does someone just find freedom um to connect with God how they see fit and not feel that burden?

SPEAKER_02 16:20

Very much so. I felt um I feel pressure sometimes when I hear people talk about what their morning looks like, and my you know, friends and uh in the ministry, they get to spend an hour in the Bible doing this and doing that, and I'm like, either I'm starting off failing or no, I know better. But I I used to feel that same way that the disciplines were a duty, okay? And I was not uh checking the boxes off fast enough or spending enough time and all that. Then I'm when I realized that it's not a duty, it's an invitation. It's an invitation to go a little deeper and connect. Um, and then I had to realize like Wesley and others, they were not a mother of four. And they're definitely um not in my rhythms. And so also I think connecting as well is uh part of your personality and how you're created. So because words mean something to me, connecting to the Lord with uh words or speaking or communicating in prayer is very meaningful. But for other people, sitting in silence outside in the creation with a cup of coffee looking out and just admiring and and connecting with God over the stars or the birds, whatever, you know, like understanding that for one person that is meaningful, but for me, the way God wired me and created me, that's gonna look different, it's gonna feel different, it's gonna be different in every season. So um that's taking the pressure off because I've found God in those different moments in those different ways. And if I had to get up and I had to read or I had to pray when my soul was craving something different, um, I would not get to experience what I need with Him. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:02

Yeah, I I think that that's really helpful. I think, I mean, even just thinking um the difference of um Pastor Mitch, who is now um, you know, he doesn't have that morning routine of having to get kids to school, and he's nearing that uh retirement age, getting to live that it's okay to give ourselves freedom to know that in different seasons of life how you connect with the Lord is going to look different. And being a faithful mom is every bit as spiritual as uh anything else that we're talking about here as well. And again, this is what helped me a whole lot. Um, I because again, I told you my journey with this has been really crazy because I just couldn't figure it out. And I I again I just felt so much pressure that it was supposed to be like this, it's supposed to be like this, supposed to be like this. And I kept looking at myself and I'm going, I don't look like this at all. So maybe I'm disqualified, maybe I'm not fit to do this, maybe I'm not even a Christian at all, because I just I can't get it together. And and so I remember having a conversation with a friend where I was telling him this, um, and I said, like, some days like just calling my best friend and talking about our lives feels like um it's feeding my soul more than if I just force myself to sit down and read a chapter of scripture because that's what I'm supposed to do. And then I read a lot of books that are um not necessarily the Bible, but the Bible adjacent at this point in my life. I was reading all kinds of books and doing all sorts of study on different topics and ever all this, and and then so I'm just laying all this out and I ask him, and he goes, This unburdened me so much. He said, Scott, you have to start seeing that everything counts. Everything counts. Every like it doesn't have to look like Wesley's morning, right? Is it Wesley that woke up three hours early and he said if he had a really busy day, he'd he'd wake up even earlier because he knew he needed he lived in a different world than what we live in. And I think so, as soon as the pressure in my life was released, um, it was it actually happened here. We we were having our preaching um seminar that we hosted a year or two ago, and listening to Jeff Freimeyer kind of challenge this idea that um sermon prep can't be connection with God. To hear that from somebody that like deeply respect and is deeply respected in the tribe that we're in, that was also very freeing to me. In fact, the less um formulated I've tried to be in spiritual discipline, the more consistent I've actually been. And I feel like sometimes we think, well, we'll force people into discipline by giving them a rigid structure, and it was actually more freedom to whereas some mornings I'll come in and I'll do my prayer journal, and other mornings based on whatever my morning week or just overall dispositions like, I might just sit at my computer for a couple minutes and go, This is all I got, God. And what I've come to find out about God is that He is pretty okay with whatever it is that we have to offer on any given day. Um, what about you, Justin? Um is there any specific um discipline um that maybe you struggle in, any struggle areas um for you, or maybe one that you wish was stronger?

SPEAKER_01 21:09

Yeah, so probably the the discipline that I struggle most in is just Sabbath rest. Just by nature, uh I'm administrative pastor at a at a church in Beckley, and then also on staff for West Virginia Ministries, and then just all the other things that that I have on my plate of responsibilities. For me, just finding those moments of rest because I'm constantly on the go and have uh this huge list of obligations and things that I need to to get done. So for me, just those moments of of of silence and rest seem to be the most difficult to achieve just because of the busy nature of of who I am. And so I would say that's the one that that I struggle with the most.

SPEAKER_03 21:55

What about you other two? What does Sabbath um look like? Because that is every bit Um a discipline as as as prayer, Bible reading, and everything else. What's Sabbath look like for you all right now?

SPEAKER_02 22:07

Sabbath looks like Monday for me. I really um I wish I could get it in on the weekends, but um, it is so important. It's the one that I've been the most intentional about in this season. It's what I felt like I've needed the most because I stay so busy. Uh, there's a tendency to feel like my busyness means I'm accomplishing all of this. And the Sabbath just reminds you that God does not need you to work harder and work more and spend seven days doing this, that he can do uh even more when you give him one of those days and you rest and you stop and settle down. So on Mondays, I just have to shut everything down. There's no uh emails, no texts, no working on things. It's very difficult. It's very difficult to um resist the urge to work on something. Um, and so that's a Monday for me where I do not answer any of those things or work on those things, and I disconnect from the busyness and everything that everyone's asking me to do and settle down um and just rest in the Lord.

SPEAKER_04 23:08

I I think the whole notion of the disciplines it comes down to one specific principle. I think you're right. I think being uh real and and being honest, be honest with God, be honest with yourself. Uh and when you sense that God is demanding time with you, he's demanding scripture, he's demanding, then be honest with it. Be honest with that. I don't think there's a set rigid plan, my plan's not for you, your plan's not for me. I think I think that's unique to the individual and personality, but but what isn't unique, what what is quite what is quite universal, is be honest with God in your in your devotion. And uh and so um the the whole Sabbath question, I I see Sabbath in a variety of ways, not only rest, but um I see Sabbath in um diversion. Uh ministerially, there's all sorts of things that's going on, you know, with state ministry and local church ministry and community ministry, etc., and national ministry. Um I like to have diversions, and so I coach. And and while it's not a I'm not laying in a in a hammock, you know, swinging back and forth listening to worship music, I'm not doing my brain is not working like it has to always work. So I enjoy that, and and that's and that's in a sense it's a Sabbath for me. Uh but then the other piece is for me, uh I I I want to be sure that vacation is taken and that I'm I'm I'm consistent with that, I'm persistent with that, that we vacation, we we get away, we we remove ourselves from the hectic paces, etc. etc. of life. And that to me is all about recovery. So I I think it's important.

SPEAKER_03 24:55

Yeah, uh let's talk about something really similar to that, but I know that it's something that you are particularly passionate about, Pastor Mitchell, especially because we got hopefully a lot of our Church of God congregations listening, um a lot of our pastors, maybe some of their board. Um, outside of the weekly Sabbath, can you talk about um the discipline that a church needs to have of sabbatical?

SPEAKER_04 25:16

Oh man, I'm glad you asked. Uh I I think it's it's it's lost to the majority of the church, the whole notion of sabbatical. Because the church is the education about what it is and why it's necessary and how it should be done and who should who's qualified to take a sabbatical and when they're qualified, all of that has to be discussed. Every local church, I'm just gonna look right at you and say, every local church must give attention to the whole sabbatical piece. Here's one fundamental reason why, and there's a thousand like it, but one fundamental reason why. Because the work of the clergy, the work of your pastor, is 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and even when they're away vacationing and there is a significant event in the church, often they have to come back to do it. So there's no real rest. There's no real respite and there's very little recovery. So that being true, a sabbatical protects that. And when you're on a three-month sabbatical, and I never recommend anything less than three months, because it cannot be a full, full-blown sabbatical, but when you're on sabbatical, you you have to have a plan behind you working the ministry that you've left for three months. And that plan must include strategic leadership, wonderful communicators preaching for you, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, and an emergency strategy. And for all the sabbaticals I've taken and all the sabbaticals I have encouraged others to take, I've always said there's really only one reason to call me during sabbatical, and that is if one of the staff passes away or one of my lead elders passes away. Other than that, staff have to deal with it. They have to do it. And it's not because you don't love the people, you don't care about the people, it's that you care enough about the long-term sustainability of your ministry for the people that you're willing to take that risk. I I could that's a whole different that's another that's another uh that's another episode.

SPEAKER_03 27:20

Yeah, staying on the topic of sabbatical though, um, because here here at Southridge we have a good policy um of sabbatical, even though we we don't always take the full three months, um, but we do have it here. But one of the things that I come up against a lot, and I will maybe I'll hear from um Justin on this, is that some of our lay lay people don't really understand why we get sabbatical and uh they're a nurse um at the ER, every bit as stressful as stuff that we go through. They don't the hospital doesn't offer sabbatical, um, a lawyer doesn't offer sabbatical. What would you say to someone that goes, yeah, how do I explain this to my church that I'm gonna take three months off, but the rest of them just got to keep grinding it out?

SPEAKER_01 28:03

And that's a difficult question, Scott. It it really is, and and those are difficult conversations that we sometimes have to have in in ministry. And so what I would suggest is that make sure that you acknowledge that there are uh other professions that are demanding and have a lot of responsibilities, but one of the highest callings that a person can have on their life is a calling in the ministry, and uh along with that comes a whole lot of responsibilities, as Mitch mentioned a while ago. You're constantly on call 24-7, 365 days a year. You you have to deal with a lot of things, a lot of difficult situations that are just so demanding and and taxing. And and so I would try to help an individual to to see that, that it's it's a calling that's above any in any other profession that you could think of because you're you're making kingdom impact. And just the demands of that are in in such a way that there there has to be times for a minister to to have those periods of of rest and renewal for themselves so that they can be replenished to pour into those that they're serving. And again, that's a really difficult conversation. Not everybody is gonna understand that or think that it's fair, but it's just the reality of it.

SPEAKER_04 29:34

You know, there there's one piece missing in this conversation. Sure. And that is Justin's right, the the call to ministry is so unique, and here's what makes it unique. What makes it different than a doctor, a lawyer, I'm just gonna say it, what makes it different than a politician, a president is the issues that clergy people deal with on a continuous basis are not just life and death. They're eternal. Eternal. And the and the eternal nature of our work is a pressure and a a stressor like no other profession. Period. So pe and and and people in the pews, let's let's give it to them. They don't get that, they don't understand that, and I and I'm I'm okay with that. But training and education helps curb some of that angst when it comes to sabbaticals being given and offered. The eternal nature of everything we say. When you think about, you stand up every Sunday and you hold the eternal word of God in your hand and you articulate its definition and its meaning and its purpose and its impact in your life and how transformational it is, you will then begin to understand the the eternal nature of the work of the clergy. And other than that, uh there's probably not a lot of difference, but that is the significant difference. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 30:53

I'll just add one thing really briefly is that the one of the differences we're operating in the supernatural. And it requires uh a different type of reset and a different type of recovery than what it would if we're just physically taxing ourselves a certain amount of days or hours or just mentally, but this is mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and we're at war. We're at war for our people, and so many things unseen while people are sleeping at night, we're waging war in the spirit, uh wrestling things out before we're we're up there, and there's just so many different components that people will never understand until you're in the seat, and so it requires a different type of rest and recovery.

SPEAKER_03 31:40

Awesome. Um, all right. So back on um back on to more of the personal side for each of us, let's jump to this final question. If somebody listening right now, they go, you know what? My my pursuit of God, my intimacy with God has been lacking. Maybe they've been going through a tough season, maybe there's just a spiritual dryness going on, whatever it might be, what is one thing that you would say to that person that says, here's how you can start getting it back on track. Here's how you can one step that you would say, if you're not where you want to be right now, this one thing is the first step. It might not get you all the way there, but this is the first step. What would you say, Justin?

SPEAKER_01 32:25

So I would say to pick one thing, make it small, and to do it for seven days. To choose just one discipline that you feel like you can focus on, and not look at it as a complete spiritual overhaul, but one thing. And maybe that's reading scripture, maybe it's time spent in prayer, maybe it's just five minutes of silence for every day for seven days, that you're not trying to fix everything at once, but you pick one of those things that you can do, and that you don't look at it as I want to read several chapters of scripture. Maybe you can only commit five minutes to reading in in the God's word for one once a day for seven days, but that you're consistent and that you might also consider adding that to something that you already regularly do. So maybe you would say, I'm gonna spend five minutes in God's Word after I get my first cup of coffee. That way you're tying it to something that you're already doing. Yeah, that that would be my recommendation.

SPEAKER_03 33:30

I l I like that. I I'm experiencing something in a different area of life that's similar to that. Is I don't know about you guys, every time that I try to get consistent going to the gym, I go really hot and heavy right at the beginning, five days a week, five days a week, five days a week, and about two months in, I'm like, I just can't keep up with this. And so I'm at right now, I've decided I'm just gonna go three days a week. And going three days a week actually seems like a maintainable pace to not quit. And so just like start small and then see if that doesn't change your desire. Um over the time, that's that's great. What about you, Jenny? What's one thing someone could do if they're not where they want to be right now?

SPEAKER_02 34:13

I'm gonna tell you two things quickly. One, stop comparing yourself to anyone else, as we've already discussed, that needs to just be put to rest. And then this is gonna sound odd, but um I would what is your love language? Whatever your love language is, um, whatever's gonna become the easiest. For me, the the worst, the hardest, not the worst, the hardest discipline is fasting. I'm not gonna encourage you to start with the hardest. I'm gonna say what comes naturally. And if that's if you're a communicator and it's talking, then you're gonna say, All right, that is how I connect um the best is through spoken words. And I'm gonna just start talking to the Lord um on my drive. I'm gonna and incorporate it into what I'm already doing in my rhythms I already have. And so it's talking on my drive, it's talking on the way home, it's talking as I'm walking, and so on and so forth. It's finding your a way to fit in what flows naturally that you're already doing in your current rhythms and start there.

SPEAKER_04 35:09

That's good. I I I love what all these these fine leaders have said, but let me say this spiritual disciplines are not about earning God's favor or earning God's touch, they're about enjoying his presence. The goal the goal isn't perfection, it's connection. So grace is a starting point. You gotta remember that. So if you failed, that doesn't mean you stop doing it and just cash it in and give it up. No, no, no. It's the starting point is grace. It's not the reward at the end, it's the starting point of grace. If you've been inconsistent, take heart. God delights more in your heart wanting to come back to him than he does the fact that you quit. That's right. So, so so let God's grace touch you and then focus on relationship, not routine. I have a routine, it helps me stay in rhythm. And that's what we're talking about. But but don't lock down on the routine, lock down on relationship so you can gain relationship and continue relationship through a variety of ways that you've heard this morning. You know, through sitting and listening and watching the nature and contemplating and listening to worship music and reading scripture. Find some find a way that you can reconnect with God. Don't be discouraged, find God's grace in it all and start again. Start. I don't I cannot tell you how many times in the last 50 years I've started over. That's right. Start over, keep going.

SPEAKER_03 36:31

Yeah, all of that's really good. And um Jenny and Mitch both both hit on it. For me, freedom has been the number one key that has unlocked my desire. As soon as it no longer felt like a chain that was like, uh, you better do it this way or whatever. Um, and and you if you're a pastor listening to this, you gotta be careful as you teach spiritual disciplines that you don't teach them as a legalistic standard, but rather you give that freedom. But if I were to say something a little bit different, um mine would be try something new. Um, and this this happened for me. I started prayer journaling um over the last couple of years. It I always thought, that's kind of weird. Is writing my prayers really praying my prayers? I didn't think much of it. I thought maybe it wasn't I don't know, but I do know um, and my hope my staff here at Southridge will tell you, it has changed my life. It being able to just have something to come in and just put my thoughts down, and we walk through I you know, uh right now I'm walking through a prayer journal that we actually created here at Southridge that just follows the uh Lord's Prayer. Um, but before that I did one called the Blessed God Prayer Journal, and it's it's broken down. And that just trying something new has revolution revolutionized my um intimacy uh with the Lord. Um so uh any final thoughts from anybody on this topic?

SPEAKER_04 37:59

I I just hope you hear what we're saying. I'm telling you, this is a dynamic conversation and it can it can change your world.

SPEAKER_03 38:05

Yeah. Yep. Awesome. Thanks so much again for joining us here at the WV Chog Pod. We really hope that this is blessing your life, your ministry, your church. Uh again, make sure that you share this, like, leave us a comment down below. Let us know maybe what your rhythm looks like, maybe what it is that God's been doing in your life and your journey with him lately. And uh, we hope to see you back here next month for another episode of the WV Chog Pod.