Recently, I’ve been feeling like I’ve hit a plateau in my faith journey. All my life I’ve been growing with the Lord and following him. Lately I’ve been fighting the feeling that I’ve grown stagnant. I repeat my prayers and read my Bible, but I’m craving more.
A trusted friend told me “not to worry about the plateau”. She said that God gives us peaks and valleys that keep us close to Him. This might be health related, financial, relationships, anything. We all have worldly things that attempt to consume us, and worldly spiritual battles that we fight. These keep us close to God. What should I do about this? Just be steadfast. Keep studying, keep engaging in conversation with God. Not every moment of our faith journey is profound, but the gift that Jesus gave us is – don’t lose your motivation or dedication because of a mere feeling.
Another piece of my spiritual journey that has become apparent to me is fellowship. I’ve encountered other faithful people along my journey and built wonderful relationships, however most of my spiritual growth has been isolated. I’m not shy about speaking on my faith but I am shy about asking for help with it. Asking to join a prayer group or form a Bible study. Why? I don’t really know, but I do know that Satan loves isolation. I am sure that he is enjoying watching me dutifully read my Bible only to take the bare minimum from it. I recently moved to a new town and I don’t have friends here yet. My husband is deployed and I never realized how much I counted on him to be my social buffer. So, what am I going to do about this? I googled churches near me. I found one that looked like what I was looking for, so I went and checked it out. What did I have to lose? If it wasn’t good, then I spent the morning at church 🙂 Fortunately, I got much more from it. The message was about Jonah – one of my favorites and I felt welcomed immediately to this new church.
I’m sharing this because you can’t expect fellowship to magic itself into your living room. Go find it, go create it. If this church isn’t right for me, I’ll keep searching until I find one that God blesses me to attend. I’ll find friends there, and challenge my faith journey to grow.
I started reading this book the week that my husband deployed. I’ve read it off and on through moving and starting a new job, but I would highly recommend it. Stormie Omartian gives targeted, deeply involved prayers and covers multiple aspects of your husband’s life. Things you may not have considered praying over. It is thought provoking and will enable you to care for your husband like never before. Throughout this story, Stormie discusses a prayer circle. She frequently describes men’s groups and women’s groups who gather together and pray over their households. This is something I’ve never tried, but look forward to starting. There are lots of people praying over my husband while he is overseas, and we pray for every other solider as well, but to gather in prayer is a power that can overcome any tribulation.
You may click the link above to order your own copy of Stormie’s book, and if you find you don’t like it then keep looking. Reading the Bible is first and foremost, but there are tons of great faith authors out there. I will recommend them as I find them, and I’d love it if you do too!
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