My word for 2016 has been JOY. Focusing on more joy within my life, within my homemaking, and in my relationship with the Lord.

And for all of those areas, I’ve been working on cultivating more Joy in my life by drawing ever closer to the Lord. Making sure that my days, my life, and my priorities are firmly rooted in Christ.

And so that has been leading me to work on and talk a lot about Spiritual Disciplines on my blog in the last six months. I’ve really been digging into how to find more Joy in the Lord. After all, the Westminster Shorter Catechism says,

The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever!

That sounds like a great goal! To always Glorify God within our life, to have JOY in Him, and ENJOY him!

But then the realities of our days hit. What does that actually mean? How do we glorify God within our days? How to we actually find more JOY in Christ and Enjoy God?

That’s been on my heart and mind a LOT this year and that’s why I’ve spent so much time this year teaching on:

• Hf #25: Developing the Habit of Daily Bible Reading
• Hf #27: Methods for a Deeper Prayer Life
• Hf #28: Memorizing God’s Word So You Can Truly Cherish Christ
• Hf #31: Learning for a Lifetime (The Spiritual Discipline of Learning)
• Hf #38: The Need for Theology in the Life of the Believer

By the way, I will tell you more about this at the bottom, but I’ve had dozens of requests this year to put all of this information into one place. Which Spiritual discipline should you work on first? How do busy moms and homemakers actually juggle these practices, etc. So I created my favorite eCourse of ALL time called Spiritual Disciplines for Busy Homemakers: Growing in Godliness. Here’s a sneak peek of the course:

My brand new online course on Spiritual Disciplines is included as just one (of the 10) courses within our brand new online training academy: My Homemaking Mentor.  <— You can hop on over to find all the details, but if you have been seeking help in your homemaking, then I highly recommend this academy to you! It’s taught by 8 different instructors on various aspects of homemaking.

Enroll in the academy today!

When I got married at 19, I knew next to nothing about running and managing a home. And while my husband I and were both Christians when we got married, I still had (and still do have!) a lot to learn about God and living my life for him!

And so for the last seven years, I have been on one long journey of learning. Learning the essential homemaking skills I missed out on learning from a young age, learning how to juggle all of the roles and responsibilities in my life, and learning how to cultivate a deeper relationship with the Lord.

And throughout this journey, I’ve come to recognize that learning itself is a Spiritual Discipline. It takes time, attention, and focus to learn in the different areas of our lives and is so worth it.

“The heart of the discerning acquires knowledge, the ears of the wise seek it out.” – Proverbs 18:15

We don’t learn and acquire knowledge simply to store up knowledge for knowledge’s sake. But rather so that we can grow in Godliness, so we can mature, so that we can glorify God in every corner and facet of our lives.

“I maintain that a biblically balanced Christian has both a full head and full heart, radiating both Spiritual light and heat.” – Donald Whitney

So why do we practice the Spiritual discipline of learning? Why is it important? And how does this lead to great joy in our lives?

The value of always learning

Learning promotes growth in godliness

“Do not be conformed any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” – Romans 12:12

The Holy Spirit plays a crucial role in our sanctification, that is, our daily progress in becoming more like Christ, but there is also a good amount of our Spiritual lives that are left up to us. Through the Holy Spirit we are more sanctified, but there is effort and work involved on our part.

(Please note: I am in no way referring to Salvation. Our salvation is not through any merit or work of our own. That is a free gift from God bestowed upon an unrighteous people. We are only made righteous, and thus saved, through the perfect work of Christ on the cross.)

But our learning and growing, does depend somewhat on ourselves. Romans 12 commands us, that even after salvation, we must strive to not be like this world. That by striving we must transform our minds to be more like Christ – day by day!

So through learning – Bible reading, studying, prayer, we can become more godly. This is not to a legalistic end. We are not striving to show the world how godly we are, or to show off good works, or to somehow earn our own salvation or God’s grace. But rather because God’s Word tells us to strive to be more like Christ and we strive to obey Him and bring glory to Him.

“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” – Philippians 4:8

How do we promote learning and growing in our lives?

Reading & Studying

Reading is the single biggest thing that God has used to grow me and stretch me. If you’ve hung around my blog very long, you know that I love reading and I read a ton. But even if you feel like you are a slow reader or you can’t seem to find the time to read I want to encourage you to consider making it more of a priority.

Why? Because in our modern world, we have access to some pretty amazing resources to help us understand the Bible and our Christian life more.

But as a busy mom or homemaker, you might be wondering how in the world you are supposed to find time in your busy schedule to read more. So I want to direct you to this blog post I wrote on Finding the Time to Read as a Busy Homemaker (I’ve got some good tips in there for you).

Other Forms of Studying 

With the internet now, we have so many amazing ways to learn and grow including things like podcasts, which I am a HUGE fan of. Every year, Jason and I put on an online conference for Christian homemakers where we invite Titus 2 mentors to teach on various subjects. That’s been an incredible way to learn and grow together.

And the biggest thing that comes to mind at the moment, since I am neck deep in the development is our brand new online training academy called My Homemaking Mentor. It’s an online training academy with 10 courses on various aspects of homemaking including a Biblical look at hospitality and a course on Spiritual Disciplines.

Check out our brand new training academy!

Learning needs to begin with Prayer

“The same is true with Godliness. It requires discipline, the discipline of an intentional learner. Are you willing to pray for the grace and to make the effort it takes to break the habits of an accidental and convenience learner?” – Donald Whitney

If you are feeling overwhelmed or like you don’t know where to start, then begin praying! Ask God that he would give you the desire, the ability, and the time to do so.

And if you need some practical hands on help, then I encourage you to check out My Homemaking Mentor.

“Where will you start? How will you begin to ‘apply your heart to instruction’ and to ‘store up knowledge’? What habit will you stop and what habit will you begin? Is there a place in your life for a method of learning you have previously overlooked? What about your reading? Is there something you should stop reading because it doesn’t build up your life or because it doesn’t deserve a place on your life’s reading list? Do you need to make the ‘one page per day’ commitment so that you don’t lose the Discipline of learning”? – Donald Whitney

When he asks what you could stop reading, it makes me think of scrolling through Facebook or Instagram, wasting time.

Next he says, to try the one page per day commitment and see how far you get. I’m pretty sure that all of us could give up one page’s reading time from scrolling through Facebook and actually start to make progress in a book, listen to an online sermon, or something similar.

I started out this year by really working on the daily habit of Bible reading and now I’ve been working on cultivating a deeper prayer life. It’s a slow and steady journey but since I’ve been focusing on growing in my relationship with the Lord, I’ve noticed a huge heart and attitude change in myself.

And because I know it’s hard to work on this kind of stuff by yourself and because you are probably craving a mentor in your life (but don’t know where/how to find one), I’ve created something incredible for you!

It’s called My Homemaking Mentor – An online training academy for Christian women.  I’ve brought together seven incredible mentors to teach classes on various aspects of homemaking.

The academy covers:

• 100 ways to love your husband
• Spiritual disciplines for busy homemakers
• An introduction to a healthy home
• Simple routines to keep your home in order
• a heart for hospitality
• and more!

In my own life, I’ve had such a hard time knowing where to turn when trying to learn the practical and spiritual aspects of running and managing my home. I’ve often wished I could find a practical (and deep) online home ec program to teach me these skills I’ve felt so lacking in.

I realized that there is nothing out there like this today and so I decided to create it. I’ve brought these amazing mentors, from all walks and stages of life, to get a well rounded and Gospel-rooted education in Gospel-Centered Homemaking.

I hope to connect with you more inside the academy and to learn more, day by day, how we can glorify God and enjoy him forever!