Three Fresh Ways to Grow Closer to God

I leaned in and turned the TV up louder.

I was planning on turning off the CBS morning show as soon as my parents had left but I got sucked in when the host teased the next segment: “After the break,” she said, “find out what one skincare product is the only one proven to keep your skin looking healthy and young.”

Never mind that one of my boys was ready to play blocks with me, and the other one was asking for apple slices, I had to know what this this magical skincare product was!

With the boys at 4 and 2, I was just able to pay a little bit more attention to myself again. I had no time to waste on styling my hair, but I could finally find the time for a bit of makeup, and had often bemoaned the look of my tired eyes and aging skin. It was worth it to make it past the commercials to find out what this scientifically-proven solution was.

The hosts reappeared around their table again and they launched into their skin care segment. Background video of scientists in labs, footage of the skincare aisles at Target, dermatologists giving their expert opinion all led to the big, dramatic reveal:

The answer was daily sunscreen.

I laughed and powered off the TV, turning my attention to the blocks on the living room floor. I felt silly for getting sucked in: the solution was simple, obvious, and predictable. How did I not see it coming?

The segment tapped in to something I wanted—younger-looking skin—and brought me back to the basics.

As followers of Jesus, we often want to grow closer to God. We want to live in step with the Spirit. We want to live abundant, fruitful lives rooted in God. And the “how” of developing this intimacy is as simple, obvious, and predictable as skincare: we grow closer to God by spending time with God.

Unfortunately, too many of us treat basic as boring. We treat our time with God as a dry homework assignment. We engage in spiritual practices as a duty instead of a delight. We check items off of our spiritual to-do list and wonder why our faith feels so two-dimensional.

As someone who thrives on routine, I can fall into the trap of engaging in spiritual habits because it’s what I always do, instead of being motivated by a desire for greater intimacy with God. But something I’ve discovered over the years is that there are endless ways to spend time with God. Basic does not have to mean boring.

If your relationship with God has been feeling dry, or if you feel pressured to make your time with God look a certain way, you may need to give yourself permission to try something new.

Here are three suggestions that may be helpful in this regard:

1. Lean into what makes you come alive

God designed each of us with our own distinctive personalities, quirks, interests, talents, and hobbies. Each of us has a thing (or more than one thing) that makes us come alive, where we are in the zone, losing all track of time, throwing ourselves into the joy of the activity. This might be birding, or baking, or belly-dancing. For me, it’s staring at the waves of the ocean, journaling, and thrifting, just to name a few.

I was reminded by a recent podcast episode of The Next Right Thing with Emily P. Freeman that when we engage in the things that make us feel most fully like ourselves, we are strengthening our connection to God. She notes:

“The more I grow in God, the more I realize that my list of what brings connection with the Divine is almost identical, or at least similar, to the list of what brings me back to myself.”¹

Leaning into the activities that make you come alive becomes a way to respond in worship to the God of joy and delight—the activity itself an offering of gratitude.

2. Cultivate an awareness that God is always with you

We know the Spirit is inside of us at all times, but it’s not something we’re consciously aware of as we go about our busy days. We might remember God when it’s time to open our Bibles, or when we show up at church, or when we need to pray. But sometimes we get tripped up when we treat God like an appointment on our calendar, instead of as the vibrant, loving presence that is always with us.

Joan Chittister, in her book The Monastic Heart, talks about the bells of the monastery serving as an auditory cue that God is there with them as they go about their ordinary days, prompting them to consider God’s purpose for their lives, reminding them of God’s loving presence in the midst of whatever struggle or task they are facing. Chittister invites us to integrate this practice into our daily lives, with our own recurring sound as a cue.

What do you hear over and over in your day? Cars honking? Crows squawking? The beep of a machine? A young child saying “mommy”? Let it be your own secret signal between you and God. Every time you hear it, let it interrupt your thoughts, your activity, and let it remind you: God’s love and light are right there with you!

3. Join (or start) a group

Our spiritual growth will be stunted when we try to go it alone. Although we each have a private and personal aspect to our relationship with God, we were created to be in community with the rest of the Body of Christ. Spiritual practices such as communal Bible study, hospitality, prayer partners, spiritual mentorship, and gathering in small groups can help us know and love God more and more.

We need community to develop our intimacy with God because other people reflect the light of Jesus in different ways, revealing God to us from a different perspective.

Theologian Adele Ahlberg Calhoun has this to say about community:

“We belong together, not apart. God is not a bachelor who lives alone. The Almighty One is a holy community of three. And we express this divine nature best when we are in a community committed to growing and being transformed into Christlikeness.”²

There are a hundred ways this kind of Christ-like community can look like. As long as the goal is growing closer to God, it doesn’t matter if you gather to knit, to eat, to read, to walk, or to garden. When we gather to share, learn, grow, and pray together, we are all enriched.

Here’s the good news: The infinitely creative God of the universe has not prescribed just one way to grow closer to God and develop a deeper faith. I’m convinced that if we can slow down and take a look around our lives and listen to our days, we will become aware of the endless opportunities there are to spend time with God.

This post first appeared on my Substack newsletter, The Scoop. Want more encouragement delivered straight to your inbox? When you subscribe, you’ll get The Scoop twice a month—packed with the best posts, podcast recommendations, and resources to help you grow your faith as a busy woman. Plus, as a thank-you, you’ll get instant access to my entire Freebie Library: breath prayers, free e-books, and more! Subscribe here.

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