Four Resources for Spiritual Growth in 2024
Cultivate spiritual disciplines in the new year
It’s hard to believe that this is the last week of 2023! I’ve been a New Year’s girl for as long as I can remember. I love that time is measured in regular intervals, that God created seasons to be cyclical and that every new year is a built-in rhythm to reflect upon what was and dream about what will be. I say it every year – there is nothing magical about January 1st, but it is a great opportunity to think back and look ahead. What better way to grow in 2024 than to prioritize your relationship with and pursuit of the Lord. Here are a few different resources that I love and that are designed to help you cultivate different spiritual disciplines for the long haul.
I’m not recommending that you jump into each one of these resources in 2024, but instead maybe pick one area that you really want to grow in this year and commit to investing time and energy to that specific discipline. If you did nothing else this year but developed a new, consistent rhythm of pursuing God through a new spiritual discipline, that alone would be a worthwhile endeavor.
If you’d like help reflecting on the past year and easing into the new year, I am excited to offer Slow Start January again this year. Slow Start January is a weekly email series throughout the month of January with a practice, a prayer, and a prompt to help ready you for the new year.
Happy New Year, friend! Be on the lookout over on Instagram for a fun New Year’s giveaway including all of these awesome resources! May we look more like Christ a year from now than we do today!
GROWING IN SCRIPTURE MEMORY
This week, I had the opportunity to have coffee with Melissa Chandler, the creator of the Abide Scripture Memory Binder, and she is a delight! This project was inspired by a memory system that she used to hide God’s Word in her heart as a new believer that continues to prove useful and fruitful today. The system consists of daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly rhythms of practicing different verses or sections of scripture and is designed to use repetition to commit Scripture to memory. Once you practice the verses for a certain amount of time daily, you move on to weekly repetition, and so on and so on. The binder is organized, easy to use, and beautiful (she had another dear friend and talented designer design a beautiful finished product – shout out Daly!). Melissa offers the Abide Binder for purchase here.
GROWING IN CONSISTENT TIME IN THE WORD
There are so many different resources I could list here, but this is the book I am committing to this year! Let’s do it together! 52 Weeks in the Word, written by Trillia Newbell, is a companion for reading through the Bible in a year. It has the readings sectioned out by week and day (6 readings a week, I love a grace day to catch up or focus on another area of Scripture) and includes a small space to reflect and record what stood out while reading using three simple inductive questions – What do you learn about God in these verses, where do you see the gospel, and how might you apply these verses to your life? Each week also includes a devotional thought based on that week’s reading. If you have never read the Bible in the year, this is a great, approachable way to start! This book also helps create a consistent discipline of being in the word of God each day. Order today and it will be here in time for January 1.
GROWING IN PRAYER
VAL MARIE PAPER PRAYER JOURNAL
I love the Val Marie Paper yearly prayer journal! It’s beautiful, practical, and helps you keep track of what you are praying for and how you are seeing God show up in the midst of your prayers. There is a section of every month of the year and within each month there are different sections you fill out to help you think through what and who you are praying for during that month. I have found the VMP Prayer Journal to be particularly helpful in helping me zoom out and lift my eyes beyond my immediate circle and pray for things going on in my city and around the world. If you’d rather not commit to the price tag of the yearly journal, there is a very affordable, undated, 6-month option. You can use this link to get $5 off your order.
GROWING IN JOURNALING + INTROSPECTION
THE NEXT RIGHT THING GUIDED JOURNAL
I have found The Next Right Thing Guided Journal to be a really helpful tool to help me pay attention to what is going on in my head and my heart in light of what is happening around me. I hear from women often that it’s difficult to assess their own emotions and needs when they are so busy tending to everyone else’s and I think this guided journal can help in that space. This journal was created to help people pay attention to what God is doing in an individual and where they might be headed next. It’s called a decision-making companion and I think it is particularly helpful for those in a season of discernment and decision making. However, I also think it’s helpful for anyone who would like some direction when it comes to journaling, reflection, and paying attention to what the Lord is doing in and around you. It’s broken up by month and season and helps create a natural rhythm of reflection and introspection if you stick to it.
