As a fitness professional, I was trained to look at an individual's goals and help them build a plan to progress toward that goal. Every time a client came into a session there was an expectation that they would have adaptations from the previous experience and would be able to do more. In order to continue to progress, the workload would need to continue to adjust so that it would cause them to stretch just a little more leading to further improvements. Sometimes, a plateau would be hit where a certain performance metric just didn't seem to be adapting as expected, so we would look at ways to kick-start new progress. Progress can't always continue in a linear fashion and sometimes cycling though different variables of frequency, volume, intensity, balance with other factors (i.e. muscle balance, aerobic recovery capacity, and so on) needed to be addressed to continue improving in the desired area, but my purpose here is not to get too deep into that.
What I wanted to share here, is the insight that I haven't approached progression in my faith in the same manner. In my life, I haven't generally thought about how I could make consistent progress and break through plateaus. I mean, obviously, I have seen examples in the scriptures of people seeming to have more powerful faith bringing about amazing things and those calling upon the name of the Lord in "mighty prayer" and thought it would be nice to have more powerful prayers and stronger faith, but then I just go about generally trying to be better on the whole, without actually assessing specific variables. This would be akin to going into unplanned workouts just going through the motions with the same weights, and possibly avoiding exercises that are needed for weak points while sticking to things I enjoy more - better than nothing for sure, but not an effective pattern to follow for progress.
So my thought on this is as follows: What if every time I sat down to study scriptures I expected to be able to draw more from that study - I expected to be more effective at making connections, finding answers to challenges in my life or for those I love? After some base "conditioning" to learn overarching stories I did some spot focus on specific areas, but then before specializing too far on any one topic, I brought back that new knowledge to again making connections within the context of the whole of the message of the scriptures.
What if when I prayed, I expected that I would get better at articulating needs, I would get better at getting answers - how would this change the way I approach my daily faith practice? What could I do to make my prayers more powerful? Greater frequency, greater intensity, longer conversations? I thought to myself that I plan workouts and track workouts to see what progress is being made, could I plan and track prayers and study and other areas of my life to see how I can and how I am improving?
Structuring spiritually strengthening activities for gains
Here is an example of attempting to plan and make progress in one area (prayer).
Variable 1, Consistency: Establish a routine - make sure that prayers are being said in a consistent time and place. We don't want the prayers to become routine without thought, but we want them to be part of the daily routine consistently as we can't make prayers that aren't happening better.
Variable 2, Attitude: Increased Reverence - Are the prayers being said in a rush, in your head, laying down tired, or are they said kneeling down approaching the throne of grace?
Variable 3, Preparation: Planned - imagine going into a board meeting to present some challenges or successes to peers. Would this work better if it was well prepared, or simply winging it? Maybe a step further, consider having a chance to make an appeal to some important dignitary or statesmen, possibly the leader of a country with power to make your appeal come true. How would you prepare yourself? How would you dress? Carry yourself? Would you listen for the response? Would you act on direction given to help you get your petition to go through? Why would we not plan what we wish to discuss with the Most High God, ruler among rulers, the great Emperor?
Variable 4, Accountability: Keeping track - suppose there was a standing meeting between you and the leader of the country in the example above. As part of that meeting there were agenda items to discuss, and follow up on items from previous meetings? Would you want to have records to help you report on the progress made on those ongoing agenda items?
I mean, I'm just firing out thoughts as they come here, but I believe there is real potential for building some kind of model or progression matrix for tracking areas of life to help them progress in efficacy to change our lives by changing us.
Let me know what you think in the comments. What "acute variables" should we be looking at for "programming" our spiritual health plan?
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