Susan attended a women's' spiritual retreat. Her church sponsored a weekend with Christ event. Susan attended and had the best time of her life. In her words, “I have never grown so much in my faith as this weekend.”
Susan aspired to keep the spirit flowing. She envisioned improving her walk with Christ on a daily basis. Visions of daily devotions, small groups, and community outreach raced through her mind.
Monday came, however. The work week started. The grind began.
On Tuesday, her daughter came home with the dance schedule. Her husband also called to tell her he was being sent on a work trip.
Wednesday was great. Both kids to youth, Susan reconnected with the ladies in her small group. Everyone spoke wonders about the women’s retreat. She shared in their joy, but inside she also knew she was quickly falling back into the rat race. She even shared her concern with the group. To her surprise, others expressed the same worry.
By Friday, with her husband packing for his trip, her son’s baseball tournament beginning the next day, her daughter wanting to invite friends over, Susan realized her aspirations for long daily devotions, gathering women for study and prayer, and sharing Christ in her community was lost. Susan just couldn’t see it ever happening.
“If only,” Susan thought, “I could be on retreat every day.”
Susan’s story is more common than not. Spiritual retreats are great, but then life happens. What is a person to do?
The best spiritual plan is the one that works for you. The one that works for you will be tailored to you. It will fit into your responsibilities and into your routine.
Many people try to force the retreat experience into their daily life. It won’t work. That is why we call them retreats. It is why we assign a limited number of days to them as well. A weekend retreat. A 3-day seminar. A week-long event.
Spiritual events are not designed to be an everyday experience. They are extraordinary experiences designed to prepare you for the ordinary.
Spiritual events can inform your daily faith. You can implement new methods of devotions learned. You may adopt new practices of faith. But you must do so in the realm of reality.
Your work schedule may not allow you to have sixty minutes of devotion in the morning. You may not have seventy-five minutes of prayer at night. One night a week with a small group may be all the time you can spare. Once a month may work better.
How do you find the rhythm that works best for you?
Try these steps for starters:
- Identify the black space – work, kid’s activities, doctor visits, things you can’t control.
- Identify the white space - empty time blocks when nothing else is planned that you can commit to spiritual devotion.
- Identify the grey space – waiting time blocks that present small opportunities for faith practices. Example: Sitting at the kid’s practice. Waiting at the doctor’s office.
- Identify the red space – time you are doing other things that might be better spent in Christian formation. Example: Watching TV. Just how many favorite shows do you have? Golfing. Trolling Facebook. Nothing wrong with these things, but at what point could the time be better used?
- Once you identified the opportunities for devotion in your schedule, wisely use those times.
Most people have sufficient time for faith development. Daily life presents many opportunities for spiritual disciplines. We just need to identify the time and learn to use every event of our life as a time to practice faith.
If would like more help to develop a daily spiritual plan, reach out to me. Click here and complete the form at the bottom. I’d be more than happy to help you learn how to let your faith flow throughout your life.