Spiritual Disciplines for Busy Women

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Winfree Brisley
Welcome, ladies. Some of you are still coming in and finding your seats. That’s fine. Come on in. We’re glad to have all of you with us for this first round of breakouts. This is Spiritual Disciplines for Busy Women, and we’re so glad to have you joining us, whether you are here in person in Indianapolis or if you’re joining us on the live stream, my name is Winfrey Brisley, and I serve on the editorial team at TGC, working with Women’s Resources, and I will introduce my friends here on the stage in just a minute, but we want to start off just giving a big thank you to Crossway for sponsoring this breakout. Crossway is a nonprofit ministry that publishes gospel-centered Bible-based content that seeks to honor the Savior and serve His church. So, thank you to Crossway. I’ve had the privilege of working with them in the last year or two on a great series of booklets about spiritual devotions, spiritual disciplines related to our topic today, we’ll tell you more about these as we go along, but the women who are sitting on the stage with me are in fact three of the authors in this series, so I want to introduce you to them and let you know a little bit about their writing and ministries. So, right here to my left is Glenna Marshall. Glenna is a pastor’s wife, a mom of two sons, she’s a Bible teacher and author of several books, including Memorizing Scripture, Praying in Pain, and Bible Study, which is part of the Disciplines of Devotion series. She’s a member of Grace Bible Fellowship in Sykeston, Missouri, and that’s where she and her husband have served for over 20 years. So, welcome, Glenna. Next to Glenna, we have Sharonda Cooper. She’s a content coordinator for the Gospel Coalition’s Women’s Initiatives Team. She’s an instructor for the Charles Simeon Trust, and she’s written several books, including Wisdom for Parenting Evangelism, which is another of the Disciplines of Devotions booklets, and we’re excited to have her with us today. And then, on the far end, we have my colleague, Megan Hill. She serves as the managing editor at the Gospel Coalition. She lives in Massachusetts with her husband and her four kids, and she’s the author of many, many books, including Sabbath Rest, which is our giveaway today. Please make sure you get your copy of that one, and it’s also part of this Disciplines of Devotion series. So, thanks for being with us, ladies, as we begin to think about this topic of spiritual disciplines for busy women. I just want to take a minute to define our terms and think about what your expectations might be coming into this session, spiritual disciplines can sound kind of intimidating when we use that phrase, but I just want to define it very simply to say that they are practices that promote spiritual growth, right? That’s all, just practices that promote spiritual growth. So, it could be things like Bible study or fasting, it could be memorizing scripture, it could be prayer. There are lots of different things that count as spiritual disciplines, but the idea is that they are helping us draw near to God and grow in relationship with Him. So, in a room this size with this many people joining us. We know that you may have come for lots of different reasons. Maybe you came because you’re curious, you don’t really know a lot about spiritual disciplines. Maybe you are new in your faith, and you’re wanting to learn how to grow in the Lord. Maybe you’ve walked with Him for decades, and you’re just interested in finding new ways to seek the Lord and grow in Him. Maybe you just saw busy women in the title and said that’s me, I’m going to that one. So, whatever has brought you here, we have two hopes for you. We know that we won’t be able to answer kind of every question about spiritual disciplines, but two things that we hope will leave you with one is encouragement that spiritual disciplines really are for you, that you really can have rhythms that help you seek the Lord and grow in Him. And the second one is that you would be equipped with at least one practical idea that you can take home with you and start implementing.

Winfree Brisley
So, as we’re talking, we’re going to do our best to give you as many practical takeaways as we can, and we would encourage you to listen out for at least one thing that you can take away with you after this session. So, okay, ladies, let’s let’s get into it. I’d love for each of you to just start telling us, start by telling us a little bit about what your busy life, your busy days look like, and how spiritual disciplines kind of fit in there. So, Glenna, why don’t you talk?

Glenna Marshall
Yeah, so I have two boys, and I feel like that should just tell you how busy I am. And I have a recent high school graduate, and then I have one going into fifth grade, and they keep my life really busy, but I’m also married to my past. Pastor, and so our whole life revolves around church ministry, which is a whole different level of busyness, but I’m also a full-time writer and speaker, and so I, but there’s also like this house that I live in that demands to be cleaned, and children who expect me to feed them three times a day, like, what is that? And so I mean, it’s just the normal busy stuff. I teach a weekly women’s Bible study and a weekly teen discipleship group. I just feel like my time, at least nine months out of the years, my time has not belonged to me. And so my first hour of the day is for the Lord, or else I would not make it. I would not make it. Sharonda, what about you?

Sharonda Cooper
Well, I say amen to that. First of all, yeah, and I’m in a different stage of life, I think, from the three of you, because I am an empty nester. Both of my children have moved out, but even when my kids were little, I did start with that one hour in the morning, and I’m sure we’ll get into that more, but my days look different. I work part-time for the Gospel Coalition. I’m also finishing my MDiv, so I’m still in seminary, taking classes, writing papers, and doing all of that. I teach fitness classes twice a week, and I disciple a number of women in the local church. So life is busy. It’s a different kind of busy, but it’s wonderful.

Megan Hill
Yeah, and similar to these women, I do. I have four children, three of them are boys who are older and launching out of high school and into college, and then I have a little girl who is nine, and so there’s that life busyness. I’m also married to my pastor, I work for the Gospel Coalition, and I do writing and speaking as well. And then, yeah, the weeds I have this weed in my yard that everyone who comes over says that’s horrible, you should take care of that weed, and I think, yes, one of these days I will take care of that weed, right? And so that’s where a practice like the Sabbath, which is what I’m here to talk about, has been so helpful to me that the Lord just graciously gives us this one day in seven and says don’t worry about that weed today, you know, today you can worry about me and about spending time with me.

Winfree Brisley
Yeah, so you can see these ladies are no stranger to the busyness of life and have had to really figure out how these spiritual disciplines fit into it, and we’ll, they’re gonna give you some tips in a minute, but as we start talking about this topic, it’s, I think, it’s that discipline word that often trips us up, right? It’s kind of like, I mean, we talk about the fact that our faith is about grace, and it’s not about earning, and it’s not about our works, like our salvation is a free gift in Christ. So, what’s up with this discipline part of spiritual disciplines? Sharonda,

Sharonda Cooper
yeah, I’d love to start with that one. I am a disciplined person. I love talking about discipline, but I think that if you struggle with that idea, one thing that might help is to think of it, think of spiritual disciplines as an opportunity, so one of my seminary professors, he used an example that I think is really helpful. So, if you imagine that you’re at the beach and you’re walking along the shore, when you’re close to the water, you will become splashed, you’ll get splashed, you’ll get a little bit of water on your calf, on your feet, but how different would it be if you actually got in the water, if you let the water kind of come up to your neck, and so he uses this to help us understand spiritual disciplines. If you’re a Christian, you will be splashed with the grace of God, but imagine what would happen if you got completely in and let the grace of God come all the way up to your neck. So I think it’s an invitation, all the spiritual disciplines. It’s an invitation to the believer to go closer to the Lord, to spend more time with the Lord, to be sanctified in a different kind of way. Not to say that you’re not a believer if you don’t practice them, but it’s an opportunity to grow.

Glenna Marshall
I think also it’s important to remember the order of your salvation. When it comes to spiritual disciplines, it took me a really long time to get past the fact that my Bible reading, my prayer time, my church involvement, all of the things that we do as Christians to grow our grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. We don’t do these things in order to earn God’s love, or to keep it, and, and that’s hard, because we like to work our way into things, but you are already loved. If you have believed in Jesus, you’ve repented from your sins, and you have turned and have been made new by Him. You have all of God’s love and approval. You can earn it, you can’t lose it, you have it. And so, when we come to spiritual disciplines, this is how we respond to the love of God. Jesus said in John 15, ‘If you love me, you’ll obey my commandments. So obeying his commandments is not in order to gain love that we already have, it’s our response to his love, and that changed everything from. And kind of moved spiritual disciplines for me from a duty to a delight.

Winfree Brisley
Yeah, I recently read an article where an author named Brandon Rickabaugh defined spiritual disciplines, and I thought this was so good. He said they’re embodied practices that help place us where grace can reach us in relational receptivity to God. Okay, I’ll say that one more time. They’re practices that help place us where grace can reach us in relational receptivity to God. So, it’s not that the disciplines themselves do anything for our salvation or do anything for us. They put us in a position to connect with the Lord, to commune with Him, to receive His grace, and to grow in Him. So, I think that distinction is really helpful as we get into this topic. But let’s actually talk about some specific spiritual disciplines. We’re going to go ahead and get practical here, and Sharonda, I’m going to start with one. This isn’t the one Sharonda wrote about, but I love hearing her talk about it. So, Sharonda has had a practice of fasting for quite a while, and I think fasting is something that actually comes up a good bit in our culture. People might say they’re fasting from social media, or they might be practicing intermittent fasting for health purposes, but Sharonda, can you talk to us about what is specifically biblical fasting, and what sort of advice or tips would you give someone who might want to try that?

Sharonda Cooper
Yeah, so the thing with biblical fasting is it’s fasting from food, and I have taught women about fasting many times, and that’s usually the rub, right, because we like to eat, we like to not be hungry, and that’s kind of the point, right? When you are going without food, you sense that longing, you have that hunger, and that is what drives you to God. So, I would say the first characteristic is that spiritual fasts need, they need to be Godward, so an intermittent fast for the purpose of benefiting your health, it’s not necessarily Godward, it can be, but it’s not necessarily for that purpose, you’re thinking about your, your weight or something like that, whereas a spiritual fast, the purpose of it is to draw near to God, to come to him in desperation to spend more time in prayer, and then the other part of it is that when you are lacking in food, you do sense that hunger. I remember when I first started fasting, and I was surprised because once I got hungry, I was reminded that God is the one who sustains me. He’s not only sustaining me when I’m fasting, he’s sustaining me even when I’m eating, but when I fast, I realize it more, because food is something I can’t live without. So, people often say things like, I’ll just go without social media, or I’ll just go without chocolate, and you can do that, but when you go without food, you’re going without something you actually can’t live without. You can live without social media, you can live without chocolate, but when you go without food, you’re reminded that God is the sustainer. I need Him to sustain me when I’m fasting and all the time. So, if you’re new to fasting, I would suggest you just start with one meal. Maybe you might skip your lunch and instead of eating your lunch, spend 30 minutes in prayer or something like that. When my kids were little, dinner was the most important time of day, so I did not want to sacrifice my dinner. I always fasted my breakfast and my lunch, because that really didn’t bother the kids so much. But when Dad came home, we wanted to have dinner together, so, so my fast always went from dinner the first day to dinner the second day.

Winfree Brisley
Yeah, Megan, let’s talk a little bit about Sabbath rest. So, when I hear that, maybe my first thought is, so is this like God has commanded me to take a really long Sunday afternoon nap, because that might be fun, except that we’ve established that we’re busy women, so I probably don’t have time to take a really long Sunday afternoon nap. So, talk to us about Sabbath rest. What is this really?

Megan Hill
Yeah, so I think there are actually a lot of parallels between fasting and Sabbath rest, in the sense of if fasting is about the food that we need to sustain us, the Sabbath is about the time that the Lord has put us in, and He has set us in time, and so one day in seven we remind ourselves actually I’m not in charge of my time, the Lord is in charge of my time, and by taking that one day to say, Lord, this time is about you, it reminds me that actually all of my time is in the Lord’s hands and all of my time is about him, and so I think one thing to do on that one day a week of the Christian Sabbath, or the Lord’s Day, Sunday, is a day for us to think, how can I maximize my opportunities to grow in the Lord, and so what can I do on this day to help myself grow. Closer to the Lord, and that might be that you do need a nap, so that then you have the energy to go ahead and study God’s word, or to go back to evening worship, or to go to your church small group, or you know, whatever, however it is that you’re going to grow in the Lord. So there might be a nap component of that, but it’s not just a nap to take a nap, it’s a nap, so that I then have the energy and the mental capacity. It might be I’m going to put my phone on the nightstand, I’m not going to look at it again, not just so I’m not looking at my phone, but so that I remember to pick up that Christian book I’ve been wanting to read, or so that I remember to, you know, work on that scripture memory I want to do. Maybe it’s, hey, with the kids, we’re gonna go on a walk, and it’s not just about family time, it’s actually about let’s go on a walk, so we can notice all the things that God created, and we can, we can speak that to each other. Look at that bird that the Lord created, look at those beautiful trees. Thank you, Lord, for that. You know that everything that we’re doing is an opportunity to really press into knowing the Lord and communing with the Lord on that day,

Winfree Brisley
yeah, that’s great. Well, Glenna, what about Bible study? So you actually have written and spoken about lots of different ways that we could spend time in the Word, memorizing the Bible, studying the Bible, but let’s key in on this study. So for a woman who wants to start practicing Bible study on her own. How is what you’re recommending maybe different, even from let’s say she did the Turn Your Eye study to come to the conference? What would be different if she said, like, no, I’m gonna start studying for myself. What does that look like, and how do we get started?

Glenna Marshall
Right, so I would say, first of all, the difference between Bible study and just reading the Bible. Well, Donald Whitney, who wrote Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life, he said it best. The difference between Bible reading and Bible study is a pen and a piece of paper. This is where you’re going to start writing things down that you observe and notice and have questions about. Now, the thing I love about the Turn Your Eye Study that you and Sharonda wrote is that in explaining these psalms, you actually taught us how to study the Psalms, which was brilliant, and why I happily endorsed it. I’m not saying this is a commercial for it, but I’m not saying it’s a commercial for it. It was really well done, because great tool to teach you how to approach that genre of literature. But if you’re just starting out and you’re thinking, I’d like to slow down, because I think that’s one of the goals of study, is to slow down and sit with the text rather than just reading quickly and not really grasping or forgetting what you read. So I would say pick a book of the Bible, maybe something that your pastor preached through recently, or maybe some psalms that you’ve heard taught here this weekend, something that’s somewhat familiar. You want to kind of give yourself a leg up to start with. Take a half a chapter or one chapter at most, read it every day for a week. Repetitive reading, so good for your brain. It’s also going to help you think deeply about the text. And then just get a notebook and a pen, really simple. You don’t have to buy anything, and write down what you observe one day, answer the question, What do I learn about God from this text? The next day, read it again. What do I learn about man or humanity from this text? The next day, read it again. What am I going to learn about Jesus? What do I.. where do I see Christ in this text, Old Testament and New Testament, by the way. And then read it again the next day. How do I apply this to my current context? Are there commands to obey, sins to avoid, things I need to confess and repent of to the Lord, things I need to put into practice, things I just need to pray about to the Lord. And then just do that, go slowly through the text, it’s not a race, just keep coming back to God’s word. I find that answering, like asking and answering questions of the text helps me to see so much that I would miss just in a cursory reading.

Winfree Brisley
Yeah, that’s great, Sharonda. I want to talk about one other one that I love to hear you talk about, which is evangelism, and I think this one is maybe not the first that comes to mind if we think of a spiritual discipline, right? Because I think usually for spiritual disciplines we’re thinking, okay, it’s something personal that I’m going to do just between me and the Lord to help me grow closer to Him. But evangelism actually is a spiritual discipline, and it does help us grow closer to the Lord. It’s not just about the person we’re sharing with. So, tell us kind of how that works, and what tips you might give us for getting started with evangelism?

Sharonda Cooper
Yeah, I love that question. I love talking about evangelism, and I love the fact that you recognize it as a spiritual discipline, because it is a way to grow. And I wish I had 30 minutes to tell you all the various ways that I’ve grown through regularly sharing the gospel, but you’re going to have to buy the book for that. I will tell you one thing that I think is really helpful. So, we, a lot of us, I think, we run in Christian circles, and you go to Bible studies with other women from your church or from your community, and there are certain kinds of questions that we will ask one another about scripture or about life. Life, but when you talk with a person who either doesn’t believe in God or has never been exposed to scripture, has never been to a church, they ask different questions, and those questions can sharpen your faith, because what will happen is you’re asked a hard question, which might be uncomfortable, but then you go back, you go home, you do research, you read, you find out the answer, you’re growing in your own faith, and so the next time you’re asked that question, you have a better answer. So I actually kind of like evangelism for that purpose, because it really helps me to dig in. But there’s also another huge benefit: every time I say the gospel, God is glorified. Every time I say God is holy, man is sinful, but Christ came to die for sinners, and for all those who repent and turn away from their sins and trust in His finished work on the cross, we will experience His joy forever. Every time I say that, God is glorified, and I’m reminded of the miracle of my own conversion. So every time I say it, regardless of how the person responds, I’m reminded that I was once in darkness and now I live in light. It’s an amazing thing. So, so if you haven’t been sharing the gospel, just start doing it. You’ll find huge blessings. And then a couple tips on how to start. Yeah,

Winfree Brisley
give us some of your practical tips. Like, yeah, I’m not really doing this, and I’m, let’s say, I’m going to the hair salon this week, and I know I’m gonna have to talk to my stylist. What do I do, Sharon? Yeah,

Sharonda Cooper
okay. So, my two favorites are to read scripture with people, I ask people questions, kind of get to know them a little bit, and then I’ll invite them to coffee. I’ll bring them a Bible. We just start reading scripture and talking, and there’s much more I can say about that. So, one to one Bible reading, I think, is my favorite way to share the gospel. However, in a situation where there might be less time, so say, for example, you’re at, you’re at a restaurant, and then your waitress comes by, your waiter comes by. One of the things I had like to do, it’s kind of a new thing, but it’s called the tattoo bridge, and so what I can do, if the person has a tattoo on their arm or something like that. I can just say, hey, is there a story behind that tattoo? And you will be surprised if you do this at Starbucks or anywhere, they will love to share the story, and inevitably there’s some kind of hurt or pain associated with that tattoo, and if you listen well, it gives you an open door to maybe speak about a tattoo that you have or maybe a tattoo that you might like to get, and you can, you can weave your way to the gospel, so it’s called a tattoo bridge, but it’s just looking for ways to speak to people about their own lives, asking them questions and getting to know them, and listening well, and then moving the conversation from superficial things over into a conversation about Christ or the gospel or even just about church.

Winfree Brisley
Yeah, that’s great. So, we’ve just talked really practically about four spiritual disciplines, but there are lots of others, and so lest we begin to overwhelm our hearers as we throw out all of these ideas. I do want to talk for a minute about how we think about priorities, right? So, you know, we’re throwing a lot at them. If they’re thinking, you know, where do I start? What should I focus on? Megan, how do we know? You know, are there some that really should take precedence over others? Where do we put our energies? What would you say?

Megan Hill
Yeah, I often go to Acts two. In Acts two, of course, the book of Acts, we have sort of this foundational period in the church, and the church is being built, and we can look to that foundation even today. And what we find in Acts two, Acts 242 right? What did the early Christians do? Well, it says they devoted themselves to four things, the apostles’ teaching, the fellowship, the breaking of bread, and prayer, and I think that’s a good place for us to start. Right, the apostles’ teaching, well, that comes to us in God’s word, it comes to us through the preaching and teaching that we have in our local churches, to fellowship, to being with other believers, and to encouraging them in the things of the Lord, to the breaking of bread, which probably was a reference to coming to the Lord’s table, so the life of the church and the ordinances or sacraments in the local church, and to prayer, to devoting ourselves to prayer, and I think in most of our lives there’s not very many things that we’re devoted to, and the word that’s used there is really wholehearted devotion to those four things, and I think that’s a great place for us to start.

Glenna Marshall
Yeah, I would add Hebrews 10 to that, verses 19 to 25 where the author of Hebrews kind of, after talking through the ways that Christ is superior to all the people and practices under the old covenant, he basically then gives us a call to action, and says in light of what Jesus has done for you, he didn’t just die to save you, he also died to sanctify you, and so he has given you access to the Father, and then he gives us three calls to action in Hebrews 1019 to 25 he’s. Let us draw near to the Father, because we can, because Jesus has opened the way for us to be in the presence of a holy God. So we’re going to draw near through prayer. He then says we need to hold fast to our confession of hope, and that is our sacred text, God’s word. And then the final call is a call not to neglect meeting together. This is your local church involvement. This is a call to be a part of the family of God. And I tend to think of those three disciplines kind of in tandem with the ones Megan mentioned from Acts. These are kind of the pillars that uphold us, and they’re not meant to be burdens, but rather gifts of grace that carry us through suffering, through trials, through temptation. These are the things holding on to these practices are going to help carry us from this day until the day we see Jesus face to face.

Winfree Brisley
Yeah, I love how it came up in both of your answers there, that the there was some community involvement here, there was gathering, there was believers being together, and so let’s talk about that for a minute, because certainly there’s a part of our devotional life that is personal, that is private, where we want to spend time in personal Bible reading and independent prayer time, but what did these disciplines look like at a community level in the church. How do we think about coming together with other believers to practice spiritual disciplines? Megan, you want to jump off on that one?

Megan Hill
Yeah, I mean, the Lord has graciously given us His people for us to be growing alongside, and I think one of the great things about practicing spiritual disciplines in community with other believers is that in the church you have people who are sort of at all different places and people who are you know have been praying for a long long time and when you come to a prayer meeting or to a group and you pray with them you’re you like learn things about prayer that you don’t know because they’ve been praying for decades longer than you, but also at the same time, when you’re praying with somebody who’s a new believer, like just their excitement and their faith that the Lord hears and is going to answer, that encourages your heart. If you’re kind of in a season where you’re like, yeah, I’m tired of this, you know, but I’ve been doing this for a while, and so I just think coming together with other people, they’re bringing their experiences, their maturity, and it can really encourage us in those things.

Glenna Marshall
I’ve had the same experience. I lead a women’s Bible study around my dining room table every Tuesday from 12 to one with a group of ladies from my church, and I am the youngest by 10 years, and it’s really fun to be in this group of women to see all the ages and stages, I have some new believers, some women who invited their neighbors, so it’s become a bit evangelistic in some ways. And I will study all week in preparation to lead these women. Well, they’ve been at home studying the same passage. We just walked through books of the Bible. We’re in Isaiah 48 right now. So, Tuesday afternoon, they’ll all be at my house to discuss Isaiah 48 and they will have pulled in things that I totally missed, and so no matter how long they’ve been a believer in Jesus, I am learning from their study time, and they are learning from my study time, and I find that to be such a beautiful way to gather around God’s word together. I’d also like to add, just recently, not speaking to Bible study, but our church did a corporate fast, and I cannot tell you how that unified us together. We did a 24 hour fast together for some things that we were really praying for as a church, and it was such a blessing. I felt so knitted together with my church family as we are fasting and seeking the Lord’s face, I mean, these bringing your church into your practices unites us, and we have enough things dividing us. So, I think spreading our disciplines out and inviting each other, such a good practice for knitting us together in love. Yeah, absolutely. Well, as we think about

Winfree Brisley
challenges, so we talk about all these beautiful things that happen when we practice, then we come together, but we all are here because we know it’s challenging to actually develop these routines to figure out how it fits into our days, and I think for a lot of us distraction has a lot to do with that, right? You, you have all the best intentions of sitting down and having this prayer time or this Bible study time, and then your phone buzzes, or a child needs you, or your to-do list is beckoning, and you remember you left the laundry in the washer yesterday, and maybe now it’s moldy, so there’s all of these distractions that can kind of jump in our minds and take us away from what we wanted to do, so Sharonda, why don’t you start us off? How can we practically fight the distraction and make the time for these disciplines?

Sharonda Cooper
Yeah, well, I like that question, because even though the purpose of spiritual fasting isn’t to develop self control, it. Helps with that, so I think that if you can start to fast regularly, it teaches you to say no to one thing, to say yes to something better, and that was that was a helpful thing as I was raising kids, because yeah, I needed the Lord, I needed to meet with the Lord every morning, so that I had something to give to my husband, and to my kids and to the people at the gym, so it is important enough to set aside time, but it is hard, and so what I’ll say to that question also I think might be helpful to some is to look at your schedule and your circumstances and try to find a time that that can be protected. It was easy for me to get up early in the morning, before everybody else woke up, but if that doesn’t work for you, maybe you might like to try something like setting aside one hour a week, so maybe you do your short devotions from day to day, but you want one hour where you can just be with Jesus, and this is something a friend of mine started doing once a week, she would go away. She called it my hour with Jesus, and so dad stays with the kids, or if dad’s not there, then you can trade off with a friend and take turns, so that you get one hour a week with Jesus. You take your Bible, you take your pen, you take whatever you need, and you can sing hymns, you can walk in the park, you can do your Bible study, whatever, but it’s, it’s protected time where you can get away from your normal responsibilities just to be with Jesus. And one other thing that I think might help a lot of people who say, you know, I’m just so busy, I’m so busy, I can’t find time to set aside time. If you have, and this is a little weird, but if you have a shower with a glass door, print a chapter of the Bible and meditate on that, while you’re in the shower, you can read a couple of verses, meditate on it, pray, all of that can be done simultaneously with your shower time, and don’t tell me you’re not showering. I

Megan Hill
think for me one of the reasons that I love the Sabbath is because it’s in some ways sort of like the meta spiritual discipline, right? Because then the Lord gives you this one day that then is free to do these things, and so maybe you know you’ve just prayed a few minutes a day during the week, and you know, like, you haven’t really met with the Lord in prayer, but then the Lord says, “Okay, but here I’m going to give you a day, and you can have time to pray, because I’ve cleared, I’ve completely cleared your schedule and invited you to come spend time with me, or maybe your Bible reading has just been a few verses here and there, but you can really dig into a passage when the Lord has given you this one day, and I find that that does something else, in that it whets your appetite for it, right? So you’ve had this day at the beginning of the week to do these things that you really met with the Lord, and so then you’re starting Monday morning out in a place where you’re like, I loved being with the Lord yesterday, let me see how I can get more of the Lord in today and Tuesday and whatever, and then maybe you kind of peter off by the time you’re on Friday and Saturday, but then Sunday comes again, and you’re like, I forget how much I love you, Lord, I do love you. And then the next week you can, you can do a little bit more and just get a little bit more of the Lord in your life.

Glenna Marshall
That’s really good. I appreciate that, Megan. Here’s my hot take for the day: when it comes to Bible study, and I would also say prayer time, no technology, and I’m telling you, I want you to get a real Bible, like with pages and everything, and some paper, and something to write with. I have seen a lot of highlighters over in that exhibit hall over there, and the reason I say that is because if you’re utilizing just your phone, I’m not saying that’s immoral. What I am saying, it’s distracting your notifications, even if you turn them off. I mean, it’s so tempting to just stop and scroll for just a minute, and then before you know it, you have been on Instagram for 30 minutes, and Jesus is like, hey, you know where’d you go. So I’m gonna say the other reason I’m gonna say no technology, aside from the distractions, is if you, it’s so good to just interact with the text, like the actual printed text. If you’re looking at a psalm, chances are on your phone you can only see part of it, and you have to scroll, and it’s so helpful to lay out and see the whole text on the page, to see how it’s broken down, to see stanzas, to see if you’re in a different genre, who’s speaking, who’s saying what to get out a pen or a highlighter and circle underline what you observe, this is it’s not only going to help you walk away with more, you’re going to forget about all those distractions because you’re really interacting with what’s in front of you, and if you have things that come to mind, like, oh, I need to switch that laundry over or rewash it, look, write it down and move on. You can come back to that list when you’re done.

Winfree Brisley
Yeah, another one that’s really helped me in terms of distraction when it comes to prayer is thinking through my posture. If I get on my knees, it reminds me what I’m doing and why I’m there, right? So my. Will be tempted to wander and start thinking about my to-do list, or all these other things, if I’m just sort of sitting in a comfy place, and or I’m sitting where I can see all the things that need to be done, but if I’ll get on my knees, my body won’t let me forget what I’m doing and why I’m there, and that helps my mind stay on track. So I think there’s lots of ways to cue ourselves to stay focused to remember the purpose that we’ve started with, and to be able to get that time with the Lord. Well, as we start to try this, I think many of us will have a sense that we need to kind of track our progress or measure our results, right. We, we in America tend to think in terms of success and failure, or did I check all the boxes, did I do it right, you know, and so we will slide into that with our spiritual disciplines if we’re not careful, but I’m not sure that that’s actually a helpful way for us to measure our progress as we seek to grow in seeking the Lord in these ways, so ladies, How could we maybe think about this better? Glenna, How do I know if I’m on track? How do I know if I’m making progress? How should I think about that?

Glenna Marshall
Well, you can’t really measure spiritual growth the way that you can measure the steps that you’ve taken, or the weight that you’ve lost, or the number of books that you’ve read. We just can’t chart it like that, and so we tend to think, because of the time and the American culture that we live, we want instant gains for minimal efforts, but spiritual growth isn’t like that. You can’t shortcut it, you can’t chat bot it, like this is a lifelong process that God is making us more like Jesus, and so I think it can be discouraging, then, to read your Bible every day for a month and be like, I’m not different yet. But here’s where I want to encourage you. The Lord loves a wait. He loves to make us wait, because waiting, by nature, teaches us perseverance. You don’t learn perseverance overnight, you learn perseverance over the long haul, and that is the Christian life. It’s a long haul, and so don’t look at yourself a month ago, like think about five years ago. Where were you? Like, growth takes time. We are in this for all of life. You’re not going to quit in a few years. You’re going to keep going. Faith keeps going. But I’d also say, look at the women in your family or your church who you know they are so devoted to Christ, and they are prayer warriors, and they love God’s word, and they speak God’s word to everyone. I bet they weren’t like that 45 years ago, and they didn’t get there overnight. So seek them out, hear from their seasoned faith of what it took for them to grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus. I bet it took a lot of years of faithfulness, and that should encourage us. These are no overnight gains. Long haul Christianity.

Megan Hill
One analogy that I’ve seen Matt Smithers use before, I think he actually tweeted it, but he said, I don’t remember 99% of the meals I’ve eaten, but they’ve kept me alive, and he was saying that in relation to preaching, but I think it’s true in relation to spiritual disciplines too, right? You might go months and months and think, oh man, I don’t even remember, you know, that particular verse, and I studied it for a whole week, and I don’t even really remember it, or, oh, I, you know, I know I’ve been praying, but I don’t remember any particular prayer time that was particularly memorable, and yet those are the things that are keeping your soul alive, because the Lord has told us that those are the things that are keeping us alive, and so don’t be discouraged when it’s not super memorable all the time, just like the meals that you’ve eaten, it is keeping you alive.

Sharonda Cooper
Yeah, I think another thing that I learned in 2020 I went through a season of just difficulty for about six months, just really, really struggling with various things, and normally I think when we are overwhelmed, what we do is we toss out the spiritual disciplines, we think I’m so busy, I’m so overwhelmed, I need to do this and that, but during that season I actually kind of doubled my time with the Lord, and that was what sustained me. So, I would encourage you, if you’re going through a difficult season, consider that you might need more time with the Lord rather than less time with the Lord.

Winfree Brisley
Yeah, absolutely. There’s a book called Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices by Thomas Brooks, where he talks about very specific ways that the enemy will try to tempt us to pull us away from the Lord, and very practical ways that we can fight against that and resist, and so he talks about this, that when we feel like we don’t have time, we just can’t get around to prayer or Bible reading or those sorts of things, and we’re focused on all the responsibilities on our plate, all the reasons we don’t think that we can do it. He says, “No, stop thinking about your capacity, stop thinking about how busy you are, and instead think about your need for the Lord, because if Satan can get us so focused on how busy we are and how much time we don’t have. Have then we’ll never get around to realizing how desperate we are for God’s grace in our lives, and so if you’ll instead say, ‘Nope, I’m not going to think about how busy I am, I’m going to think about how much I need the Lord, I’m going to think about the good that it would do my soul to open His word, to turn to Him in prayer. If we’ll think about those things, then it’s easier for us to set aside the to-do list and pick up the Bible, or get on our knees and spend some time in prayer. So, think about your need, not your capacity. And as we, as we do these things, as we seek the Lord in these ways, I’d love just to talk for a minute about the joy of that, because you know, I think disciplines get a bad rap, that it just kind of sounds like drudgery, it just kind of sounds like it’s not going to be, you know, a whole lot of fun, you just got to commit to it and do it, but that’s not how we want to present spiritual disciplines. So, let’s talk about the joy for a minute, like Glenna, what, where have you seen in your life or in others the joy that comes from spiritual disciplines?

Glenna Marshall
Yeah, so there is a lady in my Tuesday Bible study, who is in her 70s, and she has been a Christian for exactly three years. She had no knowledge of scripture at all. She came to faith in Christ, immediately started coming to church, started coming to Bible study, and I have watched her real life sanctification for the last three years. I have watched her become a new person. It has amazed me to watch her dig into a Bible she has never read before, and she loves it. She reads it all the time. Then she goes to her neighbors and knocks on their door and says, Can I tell you about Jesus? Will you want to come to church? Come to my Bible study, and she’s brought two different neighbors to Bible study. This is why we do this. It is because God is so gracious to change us through the obedience to hold on to His word, to fast, to pray, to rest. He does good work with that, and it is such a joy.

Sharonda Cooper
Me next. Well, I could talk about this all day, so I’m just going to tell one cool story. Evangelism, again, it’s a hard thing. A lot of people struggle with it, but I have seen such amazing things come out of just my persistence in evangelism. The book that I wrote on evangelism is dedicated to my friend Lisa, and it’s a, it’s an amazing story. A woman who had lived, I guess, the first 50 or so years of her life not really following the Lord, not really going to church or anything like that. We started reading the Bible together, and then two years later she came to Christ, and if you’ve never watched God convert someone, it’s completely life-changing. Everything about her life changed. Her husband, all four of her kids came to Christ. She’s a BSF teacher now, and I tell her that your story, your conversion story, fuels my evangelism, because I want to see that again and again and again. It’s like nothing else. And then I think, as far as fasting is concerned, because I’m kind of trying to speak about that as well. I was fasting for a woman who lost a child, she lost a young child, and she was very, very hurt by that, and she walked away from her husband and the church, and I just started fasting for her. Once a week, I would fast for her, and about a year later she came back to her family, back to the church in just an amazing way, and not to say that fasting is some kind of magic bullet that gets you what you’re asking for, but I had the joy of celebrating that with her husband, that we had both been fasting for her to return, and she came back. So those are just a couple of wonderful ways that the Lord has blessed me through the practice of some spiritual disciplines, I ahead, the

Megan Hill
Puritans have a say, had a saying, which was, pray until you pray, and I think that they knew that you can kind of go through the motions of something, but then as you keep doing, as you keep pressing into the Lord, you’re going to get to a point where you’re not just praying, you’re praying, right, and I think that happens with the spiritual disciplines too. I hear this happens with running, but I don’t run, so I don’t know, but that, like, if you keep doing it, you get to a point where it’s like this is bliss. Well, I feel like the spiritual disciplines are like that, you can do it and do it and do it, and then eventually you get to the point where you are praying, or you are studying the Bible, or you are enjoying the Lord on the Sabbath, and that is where you find that joy of, like, I have pressed through, and I have gotten to this place, and I have met with the Lord. And then, why would I not want to do this every day?

Winfree Brisley
Yes, I love that. That’s a great note to end on. And I also just want to encourage you, if you want to consider any of these particular disciplines in greater detail. I want to show you this series that we have. This is your giveaway today. Make sure you go get your free copy of Megan’s book, Sabbath Rest. She has lots of great practical tips in there, but there’s also a volume on fasting by our colleague Cassie Ackerman, who’s not here. There’s a volume on prayer by Courtney Wright. Sig, there’s a volume on worship by Emily Jensen. There’s Glenna’s on Bible study, and then Sharonda is on evangelism. Sorry, y’all, they’re falling off my lap. Evangelism, and these are written very practically with just accessible ways that you can begin to seek the Lord through these disciplines today. So we hope that you’ll check those out, and we pray that the conference will be a blessing to you as you go into your next session. Thank you all for coming.