When our hands are full, our personal spiritual disciplines can sometimes be the first to go. But these disciplines are so important. They are our lifeline to God. How can we make time for spiritual disciplines in the depths of motherhood? Read this post to find out.
S4E5 – What Do Jerusalem, Athens & Rome Have to Do With Your Faith? – A More Beautiful Life Collective Podcast
- S4E5 – What Do Jerusalem, Athens & Rome Have to Do With Your Faith?
- S4E4 – You Don't Have to Agree With Them to Learn From Them: Why You Should Study Church History
- S4E3 – Bible Alone? Can We Really Just Follow the Bible?
- S4E2 – What If Questioning Your Faith Isn’t a Bad Thing?
- S4E1 – Before You Pass Down Your Faith, Ask Yourself This
Hi everyone, and welcome to A More Beautiful Life Collective. I’m your host, Cayce Fletcher, and I’m here to walk hand in hand with you as we grow in grace, build with purpose, and live beautifully.
Since the beginning of the year, we’ve worked through how we manage life when we have full hands, full houses, and full hearts. When we have littles running around the house, it’s hard to find time to press on towards what we want our lives to be.
We feel overwhelmed.
We feel overstimulated.
We feel worn out.
The things we’ve talked about are not just another task on the to-do list. They are the backbone of a life that is flourishing. We need to set goals. We need to plan well. We need to steward our homes. We need to read widely.
Each one of these areas of life will help us to move forward towards grace and abundance. But if these are the only areas of life that we cultivate, we will ultimately have a fruitless life. More goals. More planning. More knowledge. A perfect home. They are good ideals, but they are not the foundation of life that is beautiful.
What is that foundation?
A life that faithfully pursues God and his word.
So, today we are turning our focus to the foundations. We are going to talk about spiritual disciplines when your hands are full. When you feel like you have no time. When you feel unsure of where to start. When you are tempted to let it be something you do when things calm down. Someday.
Do not despise the small beginnings.
Do not despise the reading of his word.
Do not despise God with this one life you’ve been given.
What are spiritual disciplines?
Spiritual disciplines are the ways God uses to sanctify us and mold us more into the image of his son. Through reading the Bible, praying, fasting, journaling, and more, we are being shaped. We are being molded. We are being transformed.
When we are called by God, we are justified through Christ before God. But that does not mean we immediately become a person who is holy and righteous. We still wrestle with envy, malice, and pride. We struggle to do what is right.
We need to be discipled by Christ, led on the true and good way by him. Our spiritual disciplines are the way that we are led. We humble ourselves and dedicate our lives to him. We follow his lead.
In John 10:27-28, Jesus says, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.”
How can we know what Jesus’ voice sounds like if we’ve never come to recognize it? We have to spend time reading our Bible, spend time in prayer, and spend time wrestling with our own thoughts and emotions – clearing the way for God to work. Through this time, we come to recognize his voice, and then, we can more clearly follow where he leads.
Related: How Spiritual Habits Help You Grow Closer to God Every Day
Visit A More Beautiful Life Collective Shop for bible studies, planners, and other resources.
But I have a house full of little kids! I really don’t have time for this!
I know the temptation. We feel like couldn’t possibly add one more thing to our already maxed-out schedule. We keep house. We take care of the kids. We cook, do endless loads of laundry, and, once our kids become a certain age, spend endless hours in the car.
We may feel like there is never enough time, but, truly, it comes down to this: we are prioritizing a thousand other things over these spiritual disciplines.
At the end of our days, do you want to look at Jesus and say, ‘I’m sorry. I prioritized my laundry, my meal plan, my hair appointments over you.’
#1 – Do you really not have enough time?
There will always be too much to do on our to-do lists and not enough time to do it. But, as Laura Vanderkam explains in her book 168 Hours, we have more time than we think. If we are not purposeful with our time, we will not spend it wisely.
As we talked about in our post on planning our ideal schedules, we need to have a schedule for our time, just like we have a budget for our money. Crucially, we need to track how well we actually stick to our schedule.
We may have lofty goals of reading our Bibles every morning, running for 30 minutes each day, and spending an hour reading to our kids. But, even if that is all written down in our planners, it will not amount to anything if we don’t actually do it.
If you feel like you don’t have enough time, take a week and track where your hours are actually going. Like the shock that comes from actually logging the foods we eat or the money we spend, we may feel a certain amount of shock when we see how our time is spent.
#2 – Are your priorities really in order?
Once you track your time, you may be surprised that you are spending 3 hours between emails, social media, and texts. Could you still spend 20-30 minutes of that time and spend it reading your Bible?
As Anne Dillard says when talking about schedules, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing. A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days.”
Put even more poignantly, Martin Luther says, “Show me where a man spends his time & money, and I’ll show you his god.”
What we are spending our time on reveals so much about the status of our souls. When we choose not to spend time on something, we are choosing not to value that thing. To not honor it. To not steward it.
Our schedules should reveal the greatest loves of our lives.
A well-ordered life should place a relationship with God at the very center. Everything else – planning, setting goals, homemaking, and other pursuits – they are only dealt with rightly if we have placed the proper importance on our relationship with God.
#3 – Have you really considered your schedule?
Sometimes, we need to take a bird’s-eye view of our schedule to see how the pieces can work together. Then, after we do some ‘life-proofing of our habits,’ we can create a schedule that works for the stage of life that we are in.
For me, this looks like waking up before the kids most mornings to do my ‘Bible + Books’ routine. (You can read more about this here.) I also wind down the day doing my Examen Prayer Notebooks. (You can purchase your copy of the Faithful Presence here.)
These two practices bookend my days with spiritual disciplines that, over time, lead to much richness and depth in my relationship with God.
Your schedule probably doesn’t look like mine. But you can still find pockets in time throughout your day. It may when your kids are playing outside. It may be during nap time. It may be during playtime, right after lunch.
Most of us actually do have the time. We just have to rightly order it.
What do spiritual disciplines look like during the little years of motherhood?
#1 – “Quiet Time” May Not Look Quiet
When we have lots of kids running around, quiet time may not be quiet. Yes, there will be quiet mornings snuggled under a blanket on a favorite chair with a coffee in hand. But, there will also be moments when everyone has woken up and decided to crawl on us. We are just trying to keep the Bible and coffee from spilling out of our hands and all over the floor.
In these years, savoring the Word means enjoying the time that we have. Yes, Quiet Time may not look quiet, but what matters in these moments is not the ‘aesthetic’ of the thing. It is our faithfulness. Showing up again and again will lead to a nourished soul.
#2 – Pick a plan that works for you
There is a time and place for working through a tome on Systematic Theology or for doing a deep study of a book with different commentaries opened and dog-eared. But that time is probably not in the thick of the little years.
What you do for your spiritual disciplines should be easy to follow on the days when you are rested and feel great, and on the days you’ve been up all night with a fussy baby.
You can choose one of these Bible plans I wrote about here. Or you can pick a devotional or encouraging book to read through.
The Faithful Word is a Bible Study system that walks you through scripture using an inductive method. It’s perfect for quiet and busy mornings alike because you can choose how deep and wide you want your study to be each day. Get your copy here.
The best plans are ones you can just pick up with the next time you open your Bible and go from there. No ‘getting behind.’ No giving up. You just do the next day, the next day, and over time, that faithfulness compounds.
The Faithful Word Method Bible Study Printable Journal | Inductive Bible Study Method | Scripture Study Guide, Bible Study Workbook for Women
Learn how to study the Bible with confidence using this simple, repeatable method designed for depth, clarity, and consistency.
#3 – Spiritual Disciplines include more than just Bible Study
Savoring the Word also means spending time meditating and memorizing the scripture. You can pick some verses, write them on notecards, and post them around your house. Or you can tack on a memorization session at the end of your quiet time. Storing up the Word in your heart will never return void.
In the same vein, spiritual disciplines include more than just your Bible. Prayer is such an important spiritual discipline. The Faithful Word incorporates prayer in your quiet time routine. The Faithful Presence offers several other methods of prayer that you can work into your day.
Famously, the mother of John Wesley, Susanna, threw her apron over her head to pray. It was about the only way that she was able to find a moment’s peace in a house with 10 children.
Prayer can happen over a sink full of dishes or while folding a load of laundry. One woman I knew used to say that her quilting room was her prayer room because of the long hours she spent at the machine.
Spiritual disciplines also include fasting, journaling, serving, and more. Donald Whitney’s Personal Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life does a great job of explaining how to incorporate a wide and various spiritual disciplines into your daily routine. Justin Whitmel Earley also does the same in his books, The Common Rule and Habits of the Household.
Related: How to Create a Habit of Prayer + 10 Ways to Pray
#4 – Spiritual Disciplines can also include your family
We may be tempted to think that our spiritual disciplines only count when they are done away from our family. But if you are regularly discussing Scriptures with your family, praying with them, and praising God with them, that totally counts!
In Family Worship, Donald Whitney describes the way that you can build a family culture that is built on God, his word, and prayer. Involving our kids in the process of Spiritual Disciplines can be life-changing for them and us!
Practically, this may look like family devotions. My kids and I are working through Long Story Short. This means that during my homeschool morning time, we read a portion of scripture and the devotion that goes with it. Memoria Press also has students memorize portions of scripture, and I can take on catechisms and other elements in this time.
In the car, mornings, or evenings, you can turn on worship music or hymns and learn them with your kids. Our annual Vacation Bible School songs are always a hit!
Just like we involve our family in every other aspect of our lives, we should also invite them into our spiritual disciplines.
From the depths of motherhood, we live fully
The little years are often full. They are full of messes, laundry, and quite a bit of chaos. But they are also full of hands, hearts, and minds.
Our houses are loud. Our to-do list is long. And there never seems to be enough time.
But we live in light of eternity. We recognize we are shaping souls to love the good, true, and beautiful. We take the chaos in stride and spend our days stewarding. We imagine God as he spoke order into chaos. We bring order – or at least try – to our little corner of the universe.
The little years can be hard, but we recognize the beauty and value in these little years.
I’d love to hear what you think. How do you make time for spiritual disciplines when your hands are full?
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If you are looking for a system to help cultivate spiritual disciplines in your life, check out the Faithful Disciple Collection. In the collection, you’ll get a bible study method, prayer journal pages, sermon notebook, spiritual habits kit, AND our signature personal statement of faith workbook. Sized for both letter and A5 paper for easy printing and organization, this is a tool you’ll return to again and again.
This wraps up our series on When Your Hands Are Full. Until next time, keep creating a life you love and cultivating your heart for God.
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