The Spiritual Discipline Starter Pack for People Who Lack Discipline

Practically Speaking

Perhaps you recognize in yourself a desire to be faithful in spiritual disciplines but don’t know where to begin. The good news is that you can begin walking the path of perseverance today! Remember, God is invested in your spiritual maturity and has given you what you need to grow. As you begin to practice prayer and Bible reading, expect it to feel difficult for a while. On the days you forget or oversleep, don’t get discouraged or believe the lie that God loves you less. You aren’t practicing spiritual disciplines so God will love you more. You’re practicing them because he already loves you and has cleansed you from your sins.

1. How to Make a Plan

The best place to begin is with a plan. With a plan in place, you’ve taken all future decision-making out of the equation. You won’t have to redecide each day how you’re going to practice Bible reading or prayer. Make the decision now so all you have to do tomorrow is show up. First, pick a place. Put your Bible, notebooks, and pens in a place where you can regularly sit. Next, pick a time. The time you choose will depend on your particular schedule and commitments, but most find that morning is best. Then, pick a plan and follow it. Finally, tell someone. Accountability is a gift when it comes to developing new habits. Have a friend or mentor from church call or text regularly to ask how you’re doing.

Everyday Faithfulness

Glenna Marshall

This book explores what daily faithfulness to Christ looks like when spiritual growth seems hard to measure, working through the unique challenges to faithfulness during seasons of waiting, doubting, caretaking, suffering, and more.

2. How to Choose a Daily Bible Reading Plan

Now, for the plan. A daily Bible reading plan builds some additional accountability into your life. You don’t have to wait until January 1 to start a plan. A year can begin on the date of your choosing. It’s helpful to use a plan that keeps you in multiple parts of the Bible at once.¹ You’re less likely to get bogged down in a challenging book like Leviticus when you’re also reading Psalms, Proverbs, and Colossians. Daily reading, as uncomplicated as it sounds, can change your life. Simple, daily absorption of the words of the Lord is the kind of nourishment your soul thrives on.

3. How to Ask Questions of the Text

Another method of study is to walk through one book of the Bible at a time while answering some basic questions about the text. Answering the questions below helps me to read the Bible with God in mind, to look at all of Scripture through a gospel lens, and to arrive at appropriate application. Making summary statements helps me articulate what the passage says, giving me an easy way to speak the words of the Lord to my friends at church for encouragement and to move a conversation with my unbelieving friends to spiritual things.

Below are my simple steps that you can follow for your Bible reading; maybe you can eve make symbols to mark on your bible and help you remember them.² Read the text several times and establish the background (study Bibles are helpful for this). Then move through the following steps:

Make a general summary statement about the text.
What does this teach me about God?
What does this teach me about man?
What does this text teach me about Christ? (Or, how does this text point me to Christ?)
How can I apply this text to my life?
Make a second general summary statement about the text.

Using these steps, you can work through one book of the Bible over the course of a month or a year—you choose. Read a chapter a day and answer each question. Or, stretch out the process over a week, reading the same chapter each day and tackling one step per day. When you’re reading the Bible and thinking through what you learn, you’re like a tree planted by a stream, always nourished, always bearing fruit. Work through this process with a friend or small study group and discuss what you’ve learned each week. You’ll learn more in community, and you’ll be more likely to stay with the plan.

If we want to grow in our awareness of God’s promises, we must draw near to him.

4. How to Pray with Purpose

Praying through the passages you’ve read and studied can further plant the truth into your heart. Praying through the text I’m studying helps me memorize and meditate on it. And speaking the words of the psalms to the Lord often gives me the language of lament or praise that I struggle to come up with myself. Praying Paul’s prayers for the church in Philippians 1 or Ephesians 3 aids in my prayers for my church.

My pastor-husband has long encouraged our congregation to pray with a list, and I’ve found it helpful in organizing my thoughts and fighting distractions. I start inward, beginning with my own sanctification, and move outward to my husband, my children, my church, my friends and extended family, unbelieving friends and acquaintances, missionaries and church planters, and the persecuted church around the world. The list keeps me focused and guarantees that I will intercede for the people I’ve promised to pray for.

5. Don’t Give Up Through the Struggles

Maybe, like me, you’ve never successfully trained for a marathon. Maybe you hit snooze at six o’clock in the morning too many times or choose Netflix over a good night’s sleep. Maybe getting to the gym regularly is about as likely as choosing salad over a cheeseburger. Maybe you’ve struggled, as I have, to make a regular practice of the spiritual disciplines God has given us to know and make him known. Yet the benefits of rooting ourselves in his word, in prayer, and in corporate worship reach far beyond what any diet or exercise plan ever could.

If we want to be equipped to encourage believers and share the gospel with unbelievers, we must hold fast to our confession of hope regularly. If we want to grow in our awareness of God’s promises, we must draw near to him. We must train our hearts to default to Scripture now so that when life is unbearably hard, we’ll turn to our Lord out of a long-practiced habit. Perseverance now feeds our faithfulness later and sustains us for future trials.

Suggested Bible Reading Plans:

Notes:

A one-year Bible reading plan can be found at https://static.crossway.org/excerpt /esv-mcheyne-reading-plan.pdf.
This is just one way to study the Scriptures. If you have other methods you’re familiar with, use those. If you’ve never attempted Bible study by yourself, a helpful resource is Jen Wilkin’s Women of the Word: How to Study the Bible with Both Our Hearts and Our Minds (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2014).

This article is adapted from Everyday Faithfulness: The Beauty of Ordinary Perseverance in a Demanding World by Glenna Marshall.

Glenna Marshall (BA, Union University) is a pastor’s wife and mother of two sons. She is the author of The Promise Is His Presence; Everyday Faithfulness; Memorizing Scripture; and Known and Loved. She is a member of Grace Bible Fellowship in Sikeston, Missouri, where she and her husband have served for over twenty years.

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