Spiritual Growth on Life’s Highway, Part 1

Growing in our relationship with God and feeling close to Him doesn’t just happen. In this series of devos, we will look at ways to get closer to Him.

spiritual growth on the highway of life

The Beginning of the Relationship

Picture your life as going down a long highway. You never end your journey exactly the same as you started. If you have a relationship with God, He will grow you through each stage of your highway journey. His goal is to make you the best person you can be.

To experience a close relationship with God, we must first receive Jesus Christ into our lives.

We Christians know we cannot earn our relationship with God through doing things. Being set free from and forgiven for our sins is a free gift when we come to Jesus. We simply acknowledge that Jesus is God, that He took the punishment for our sins when He gave His life on the cross, and that He rose from the dead. Once we acknowledge this, we simply invite Him to come into our lives and forgive us for our sins. That’s it. We take those steps, and we enter into a relationship with God.

Yielding Daily to Jesus

Once we have turned our lives over to Christ, there are things we can do to grow closer in that relationship. However, it is essential to remember that we cannot do these things in our own strength. Daily yielding and allowing Him to work in us and change us is the key to letting Him give us a passion for the things we can do and the ability to do them.

Talk to God Regularly

In relationships with people, talking with each other is essential and valuable. If we aren’t talking, our sense of closeness with them starts to dry up. It’s the same way with God. He wants to hear from us a lot – not just during prayer time at church or once a day in our devotional time.

You don’t have to talk out loud to talk to God. You can think your prayers. Just talk to Him as you would talk to a friend. Express what you need from Him and listen for His answers. He usually speaks quietly in your Spirit. You need to be listening quietly to hear His voice.

My Own Experience

I talk to God over and over throughout the day. How?
Thanking Him when I recognize blessings and how He is working.
Calling on Him when I need understanding or don’t know what to do.
Asking Him to direct me so that I don’t wander from the path He wants me to follow in my life.
Praying for other people and their situations, asking for God’s intervention.

These are often brief snatches of conversation with Him, spread throughout the day. Other times, I may talk to Him at length about something I’m reading in the Bible, about how to express something in my writing, while journaling, or while seeking to hear what He wants to tell me.

Journaling

The more we talk to God, the more we see Him at work. Keeping a prayer journal of what we are praying for and how He answers is another way to grow in our relationship with Him.

Also, journaling what we are reading about in Scripture and what we are learning from it is a great way to see how God is opening our understanding of Himself and His Word.

And journaling about our spiritual growth is helpful as well. We can go back to previous entries in our journal to see what we were struggling with, what questions we wanted answered, and our observations of how God was working in our lives and situations.

Suppose you journal your spiritual growth and understanding regularly. Over time, you will see how Jesus is really working in your life, how He has answered prayer, how He has enabled you to step out in faith, how you have grown in relationships with others, and how He has opened doors for you to serve and share His love with others.

We don’t always remember where we came from in our faith journey. Going back to review our journal entries helps us remember. Writing about where we are now in our walk with God allows us to perceive where we want to go in moving forward, seeking Him for further growth in our relationship with Him.

Coming soon: Part 2 of Spiritual Growth on Life’s Highway

I also invite you to read My Guide to a Meaningful Quiet Time, on Substack