Exploring Spiritual Practices

Kay >> Hi. I’m Kay Daigle of Beyond Ordinary Women Ministries. Welcome to our podcast and video. Our special guest today is Jodie Niznik. Welcome Jodie.

Jodie >> Thanks, Kay. So always good to be with you.

Kay >> And we always love it when you come on here. We’ve had some great conversations and I’ll get into some of those at the end so that people know more about them. Today we’re going to talk about spiritual disciplines. And Jodie, I need to tell you a little bit more about her before we get into our conversation. Jodie is an author, a Bible teacher.

She desires to help people make space for God in their lives. And she has a Scripture meditation podcast, which is fabulous, and it’s called So Much More. And where can I get to that, Jodie?

Jodie >> Yeah, if you go to my website, which is jodieniznik.com, there are links there, but it’s also on any podcast platform. So wherever you listen to podcasts, you can Google so much more scripture meditation and you’ll find it.

Kay >> All right. Thanks for letting us know yeah. Well, as we start talking about spiritual disciplines, I just wanted to say from the from the get go that growing up in the church, all I knew was I was supposed to pray. I supposed to read my Bible, and I was supposed to give money. So I definitely came a long way.

And I’m sure that there are people out there that don’t even know what spiritual disciplines are. So let’s sort of start from the beginning. How would you define them? Just tell us about them.

Jodie >> Yeah, I love that you started with the basic spiritual disciplines that we know prayer, Bible study, giving to the church. Those are the practices that we know. But spiritual disciplines are actually much bigger and they all come from what we see Jesus doing. So Jesus, when he invited us to be followers, he said, “Come follow me.” That’s what he said to the original disciples.

You all know that. And when we look at what he was actually inviting them to do, he was actually inviting them into a way of living. He was inviting them to do the things that he was doing so that they would become more like him. So spiritual practices are often called spiritual disciplines. Those two words are interchangeable. I like practices a little more than discipline because I think discipline, especially if we’re breaking out of even kind of a legalistic background it feels a little harsher to us and not as invitational as a practice.

Practice has a little bit more freedom in the word for me, but a spiritual practice is something we see Jesus doing, but with the intention that we are being formed to be more like him.

Another thing I think is really important about spiritual practices is we’re all being formed into something. We are all being formed intentionally and unintentionally, and some of the ways that we are unintentionally formed are the things that we do, the things that we read, the things that we watch, the people that we spend time with, those things are all making us into the people that we are.

Spiritual practices are a way to say, I want to be intentionally formed to be more like Jesus. And so I’m going to do things in my life that are just going to open me up to that grace so that I can intentionally choose how I’m being formed and to become more like Jesus, to be to experience that transformation.

Right. That’s what we all want as believers. We want to break free from some of the things that hold us so that we can be more like Jesus.

Kay >> So I love that. I love that because we all need to be formed and we’re being formed so much of our world.

We do have to be intentional to find those ways to be formed, to be more like Jesus. So I love that. So do you want to tell us a little bit about some practices? And how do we choose which ones that we would do anyway?

Jodie >> Yeah, you know, I think when we look into Scripture, we can we start to see, you know, when we put the glasses on to see, okay, what were some of the things that Jesus did? We start to see things like of course he knew Scripture. He knew the Scriptures from a young boy that was part of the fabric of the culture that he was raised in.

But he also prayed. He also retreated. We see him pull away multiple times in Scripture doing this kind of retreat and silence. We see him practice Sabbath. We see him be really intentional about the community around him. We see him fast, we see him celebrate, practice generosity. There’s all these different things that we see Jesus do.

What should we do?

I think we start where we are. In a conversation like this can make us feel like we’ve just been given a list of 15 things to do. And that is not the heart and the intention at all. Because that is actually just more soul crushing. And I believe that it’s all invitational.

So perhaps as Kay and I are talking, something will strike you and you’ll think, Oh yeah, I want to try that!

Try it, and start where you are.

And also give yourself a lot of grace. Don’t beat yourself up when things don’t go right or if you choose to fast at lunch, you’re like, “I’ve got to eat.” Great! What did you learn from the first few hours of fasting?

So I think just being open to experimenting with things, seeing what works for you and doesn’t work for you, we’re all different. God’s created us all so differently and that’s one of the reasons why I think there are so many different ways that we can lean into these spiritual practices. So I guess that’s how I would start with the selection process.

Kay >> Yeah, I think that’s really very wise what you’re saying. I find myself drawn to different practices at different times in my life depending on what’s going on. And so I don’t do all of them all of the time, but I really just use whatever seems to work for that period of time, you know, whatever draws me closest to Christ and helps me be like him.

And so it has varied for me, although I do continue to go back to all of these things, you know, frequently. It’s not that I’ve just abandoned them in any way, but I certainly started very slowly just adding something that I hadn’t done before.

Jodie >> Yeah, that’s exactly how I started as well. And I think it was the invitation for me.

The first time I was introduced to spiritual practices, I had just started working full time in ministry. I was finishing up seminary so I’m working full time in ministry. I’m finishing up seminary. I have two young daughters. I was doing far too much, and I was exhausted. And I felt like I was just getting up to strive more in my relationship with God.

That’s when somebody introduced to me this concept of spiritual practices, and it was just like I started with five minutes of silence, just sitting— nothing, no words—just sitting. It was just this different way to be present with God for me in this season of extreme hurry, extreme busyness. And God was also showing me that it was not his invitation for me to live at that pace also. There was a different pace that he was inviting me into.

So I’ve definitely done different things at different times. One time a season of spiritual discipline for me was to get eight hours of sleep a night. It was to rest because I believed that there’s this rhythm of rest and renewal and work that happens in our bodies. And God was calling me, “You have to sleep,” that became a spiritual discipline for me. That season was resting.

So I’ve done different things, and I think any time God calls you to something, there are traditional practices, which I think is what we’re going to spend most of our time talking about. But I also think we need to be tender to the Spirit’s leading because sometimes he’s going to invite us to do things, and we just need to respond to those to those things because he’s inviting us into a different way of living, of experiencing him.

Kay >> Yeah. Again, I so agree with what you’re talking about. So let’s get into some of these practices.

Jodie >> Yeah. Where do you want do you have one you want to start with or do you want me to just jump in?

Kay >> Um, well, what would you say? What are some of the basic ones that really we should be doing all the time? Are there some we should practice all the time?

Jodie >> Well, I think we talked about that at the beginning. I do think Bible reading and study, you know, Scripture because we can quickly get out of whack because we live in a world that is not formed on Scripture. And so it’s kind of this plumb line for our heart. So reading Scripture to me is a centering practice every day, making sure that I am reading God’s truth and letting that for me.

Prayer is also a practice I think every all of us need to be doing. It is a practice of surrender. It is a practice of communion. It is a practice of waiting and just conversing with God.

So Bible study, prayer.

And I would say silence and solitude. So we can talk a little bit about that is another one that we see repeated throughout Scripture where Jesus pulls away. You know, he did 40 days of the wilderness.

He pulled away after a long night of healing. He pulled away after he heard John the Baptist had been killed. He pulled away in the garden right before he was going to go into this incredibly intense time of his suffering and his death. He pulled away alone to be with God. So this is this practice of pulling away.

And it’s not leaving a completely solitude life because we need community, which we’ll talk about. But if Jesus needed to pull away, how much more do we need to pull away? And I think one of the problems with this practice, though, is it’s so hard to get quiet and still because we live (and it’s just ramping up and up and up. right?) We live in this just constantly on, constantly moving, constantly noisy society.

In fact, there’s a syndrome which you probably all experienced when we think our phone has vibrated and it’s not even on us. It’s this phantom phone vibration thing that happens. We are so used to being connected that it’s hard to actually disconnect.

And so one of the things that I recommend to people is to try and pull away for maybe, you know, start small, maybe it’s an hour, but choose a day one time in the next couple of weeks or whenever it works for you, and pull away with no agenda just to be present with God. Maybe bring your journal, maybe bring your Bible and sit with God in the silence and let him start to unearth what’s going on deep in your soul.

For me, the practice of silence and solitude is very difficult, and yet it is incredibly, incredibly rewarding. It’s difficult because it’s hard for me to calm my mind down. As soon as I intend to be quiet, all of a sudden I am confronted with a list of things to do that I haven’t thought about for years. I must go clean the attic out right now. So ridiculous things like just start being this burning desire within me.

And if I can push through that, which I would say is another thing with all spiritual practices is we have to go past where we think we can, right? So our temptation, our flesh wants to kind of reject.

Oh, I don’t like being quiet. I’m done. I’m going to pick up my phone. I’m just going to check that one thing I’m going to. And if we can just push through that bit of discomfort and let the thoughts start to quiet, then we’re going to actually start to experience sense this still small voice of God. We’re going to start to feel that the gentleness that the Holy Spirit is known for to nudge us along.

We’ll think a thought and we’ll think “That wasn’t me. That’s not something I would normally think and this is how the Spirit works.”

So for me, silence and solitude. It hasn’t been easy, but it has been incredibly important in my life, especially when I am seeking direction from God. Especially when I feel like something is about ready to change I need extended time with God to just ask questions, sit quietly with him, let the Spirit cut through all the clutter in my life.

And speak his words of truth over me. So I would say silence and solitude is a big one that we need to add into our lives.

Kay >> I totally agree with you. And I would say that when I was a younger, even 15 minutes would have been a big deal, you know, and so I’d encourage people to even start with 15 minutes if that’s all you can do. But try to push through and increase that amount of time.

Then years ago, when I was on a church staff, I grew some connections. I met someone who was creating some silent retreats at just a local place in town. We didn’t have to go for the weekend or anything like that. And so I told her that next time she took a group to this place that she normally took people to that I wanted to go. And those were really good times for me.

She was doing them about once a month, and I couldn’t always go because of my schedule, but I went as many times as I could. And so you were in a community of a small group and yet you weren’t talking to any of these people, but you were all doing something very similar— just really journaling and reading my Bible and taking the Lord’s direction about things.

And what are you saying to me? Those were really good days when I did that.

At the point in my life now I really am home a lot by myself. And so I don’t have to work so hard to find those times of solitude and silence, but they’re very much worth doing.

Jodie >> Yeah. There is a ministry called Digital Silent Retreats that a woman, Laura Murray, runs and excellent. And it’s a great resource, and it’s free. Basically it’s creating that experience that you had.

And what I love about it is a lot of times when we venture into a silence and solitude experience, we’re a bit lost, like, what are we supposed to do? What are the rules tell me how to achieve when I do this?

And it’s there aren’t rules. I mean, it’s, it’s really you pulling away to be with God and hopefully letting God direct the time instead of us direct the time. And I do bring a journal and a Bible and I just start journaling. I just start kind of mind dumping everything out.

But what I love about these digital silent retreats is, again, you’re with a community of people. You log on. She kind of gives you a packet of information. You pray. You leave. You log off. You go and you spend this time in solitude and silence working through different Bible reading and questions, reflective questions.

And then you come back as a community and you talk about—How was that? Was it hard? Was it good? What did God say to you? Was he silent? And it’s just helpful to have that accountability. So that’s definitely a link that we can put. I highly recommend the work that she’s doing, and she’s actually in Dallas, too, which is interesting. But you don’t. But you can be anywhere to do this.

So great resource.

Kay >> Yeah, and that’s very similar to what this group did. We would go back, she actually would give us something to think about if we wanted to, but she said, if you already have something in your heart that you need to talk to God about it, you just go ahead and do as you’re led during your time. But she would give us, you know, a little devotional, a little something somebody had written that she had found encouraging or challenging that we could use if we wanted to.

And then at the end of the day, we gathered and just shared some of the things that our time had meant to each one of us. I highly recommended that kind of thing, and you don’t have to even necessarily have some big person telling you what to do. I mean, you could just all agree on some scriptures that you want to look at or something like that.

So I think that’s really important. What are what is another practice that you have really helpful that maybe we aren’t as familiar with?

Jodie >> Well, I think we’re familiar with this practice, but it’s something that’s maybe a little foreign to us about how to do it—and that’s Sabbath. Sabbath is something that God actually models for us right back in creation on the seventh day, you rest. When he releases and rescues the Israelites from slavery, he instituted Sabbath for them.

And it’s interesting because here are these people that have been enslaved had to work there.
Their entire existence depended on what they could produce. And God is telling them he’s reframing things for them by telling them, no, you actually need to stop for a day.

And so fast forward is the New Testament. Of course, we see Jesus practice Sabbath, and yet we also see that it became distorted in the New Testament and had become incredibly legalistic. All of these boundaries were set up around Sabbath and what you could and couldn’t do. You could walk this many steps, but not this many, because that would be working. And, you know, you like it just it became this burdensome practice. And that’s why Jesus in the New Testament says, “Hey, Sabbath was made for people. We were not made for the Sabbath.”

So he’s basically saying Sabbath is a gift. Sabbath is something God has given you. It’s a 24-hour day that you seek to what most people say is you stop, rest, dwell and delight in those 24 hours and you start at sundown.

What I love about this is the Jewish Day. The ancient day always started at sundown, which means we always start the day with rest.

We start the day with non productivity, with submitting ourselves to God, and then we end the day with actually doing the work that he’s called us to do. So Sabbath also starts at sundown and it ends at sundown the next day. For me, I practice Sabbath. I would say most weeks I try to practice the Sabbath and it’s difficult.

Sabbath is probably one of the harder practices for me because I am somebody who likes to do and doing gives me great joy. It releases all the endorphins in my brain when I get to check boxes and get things done.

And putting things aside and saying that can be done tomorrow is really difficult for me. And yet what I have discovered as I’ve been trying to practice Sabbath is a few things.

One, it’s permission for me to do things that bring joy into my life. So stopping work, resting, dwelling, worship and delight and this has been the thing for me is what is it that would bring delight into my day? Because God also wants that for me. Not only is it just a day to stop working, it’s a day to savor the goodness of God.

So a lot of times I will paint on a Sabbath day on a Sunday. I do Sundays for Sabbath since I’m not working at a church anymore, I have that ability. But when I was working at a church, you don’t really have the ability. You need to choose a different day, or most people do. And so I’ll pull out my watercolors and paint for a few hours because that brings me joy.

And otherwise, you know what I wouldn’t do it. I would do the laundry, and I would do some meal prep, and I would check my email, and I would try to get ahead on the weekend. And this just helps me stop.

One of the beautiful things that Sabbathing reminds me is the world is not dependent upon me. I am not God. The world does just fine without me when I take a day off. God does just fine without me when I take a day off and the work he has given me to do, it is work that can be done within six days, taking a seventh day off. If it can’t, then I have to evaluate where am I putting too much on myself that God hasn’t asked me to take on.

And also, there are seasons, right? There are seasons when we have young children that taking a day off looks a little different. Or there are seasons when we’re in a financial crisis and maybe we have to take on jobs that we wouldn’t normally do, that you know, we don’t get the luxury of choosing our hours. I understand that there’s all these different seasons that people live in but I would say Sabbath isn’t just for people that have the privilege of getting a regular weekend or having some sort of job that only is supposed to be 40 hours. Does that even exist anymore?

I don’t know. But, you know, it is it is something that God invites us to do. And so we may have to get creative about what that looks like. It may not be a full 24 hours, it may be an afternoon, it may just be a few hours where we intentionally just stop, put our phone away, take a nap, read a book that we love, do something delightful, take a leisurely prayer, walk with God.

I mean, all of those things can be part of our Sabbath habit. So that’s another one that I think is worth thinking about and trying if you’ve never tried Sabbath before.

Kay >> When I was a girl, there were more homes, I think, that enforced some sort of Sabbath for their children. They couldn’t play; they couldn’t have fun. They couldn’t go to the movies, you know, those kinds of things. My parents never did that. But when I encountered another kid who was under these restrictions, I just thought it was horrible.

So I didn’t have a very good perspective for the whole Sabbath-keeping idea because, I mean, it was truly law. It was truly law for them. There wasn’t anything. I don’t think you were supposed to enjoy the day. So I love you saying that things that you delight in are things that you do on the Sabbath. In fact, I have a a younger family member, not in my immediate family, but a little more distant than that, who after he got married and had kids, I mean, he just sat under a pastor who was very adamant about Sabbath for everyone.

And everyone had to do it and do it his way and so this young man let his extended family, some people in it on the other side of the family (not the part that I’m part of) who were not believers know that he couldn’t come and participate in their birthday celebrations or anything like that on Sundays. It was just he couldn’t do it.

And I thought, “this is such a corruption of what God intended because he intended us to be with other people on Sabbath.” That’s not.

Jodie >> OK.

Kay >> That’s not I don’t know. Anyway, it was it made me very sad and I’d spend you know, I try to stay away from work. That has to be done that can be done during the week. But I try to leave that part during the week because it does remind me that it’s not up to me. It’s up to the Lord that he is really the one behind everything I do. And I need to just trust him. It’s a matter of trust that faith and trust, I think.

Jodie >> Yeah, yeah. 100% it is. It’s very much a trust thing, especially when it feels like there is a lot to do. To trust him to get more done with less time—that’s scary. And yet God is faithful and he does help us get what should be done, done. Some things are going to not get done and it’s probably okay.

Kay >> Right? Absolutely. It also, I think, helps people who are perfectionist because when your time is limited, you can’t always get everything perfect. You have to stop after a certain amount of time.

And I found that when I was in seminary that, you know, I could keep working on these papers that I was writing and studying, but I had limited time so I just had to quit at a certain time. I mean, I would tell myself, “I’ve got till noon, I’m going to finish this paper, and then I’ve got something else I need to do.”

So all of those things, I think, help us trust God and realize that we can’t do things perfectly. But it’s all in God’s time. And he’s the one that really is the one behind all the ministry and the things that we do with our family.

I mean, he’s the one working through us and all those things.

Jodie >> And then yeah, and I’d love to recommend a book. And Ruth Haley Barton has written a book called Embracing the Rhythms of Work and Rest. And so if you’re thinking about exploring Sabbath, I love how she has outlined it. She talks about the four different, you know, rest, dwell, rest, well, delight and stop now. Now, I can’t remember what I’m trying to say, but she talks about how we see how God instilled that.

But she also talks about people in really busy seasons of life, how families with young children can practice Sabbath and things like that.

And so she’s she does a beautiful job of making Sabbath invitational and not legalistic because I do think we have a lot of baggage with Sabbath and I think Sabbath is a gift, but we need to rethink it and we need to go back and explore how maybe God is inviting us to do it. So I loved her book.

I think it’s great, especially if you’re considering Sabbath now.

Kay >> That’s one of hers that I haven’t read. She actually did a retreat for a church staff that I was on. And one of the things that she had us do was silence. And we started at dinnertime. We couldn’t talk to each other. And then the time was over like about nine the next morning, something like that.

And I tell you what, some of those young men were just—they just could not do it. It was just! one of them actually had a wonderful story describing how he was just walking around really angry about the whole thing. And then God just drew his attention to something that was really ended up really being meaningful. He got over talking with his friends and that kind of thing.

It would have never happened. So you really give time for God to move in all these things. I love. Yeah, I love that.

Jodie >> Yeah. Which, you know, makes me think of another practice that I have been working on recently, and that’s fasting. And fasting is hard practice for us, especially in our world, and especially as women, because a lot of us have maybe not the best relationship with food or the best relationship with our bodies.

And so I want to, you know, caveat the whole fasting practice by saying, if that’s you, this probably isn’t the practice for you or you need to consider how you can fast in a way that’s healthy and life giving and actually draws you closer to Jesus instead of feels like maybe you’re using your religion to get something. Like you’re making up for a bad food day or something like that. That’s the wrong reason to fast.

But Jesus again, we see Jesus fasting, right? He fasted 40 days in the wilderness and Jesus assumes that we’re going to fast. And in Matthew, in the Sermon on the Mount, he says, “When you fast.” So it is an assumption of us as followers that we’re going to be fasting. The early church used to fast all the time.

They fasted, actually most people will say they fasted two days a week on Wednesdays and Fridays and then they fasted longer during the Lent season. And yet fasting is totally fallen out of the usual practices in the modern Western Church. I don’t know exactly why that is, except for it makes us feel really uncomfortable. And I have been fasting probably for the last, I don’t know, six months, maybe every Monday, and it is hard.

But what I have learned—so I will fast until dinner on Mondays. most Mondays. If I’m traveling, I don’t tend to fast if I’m on vacation or something like that. But what I’m learning about fasting— and also I will say I couldn’t have fasted years ago because I didn’t have that healthy relationship with myself or my body in the way that I do now.

And so but what I’m learning through fasting is that I don’t need to actually meet all my needs I think just the simple denying ourselves of something that is actually going to make us feel better for a moment. You know, it’s going to take the hunger pain away or even emotional eating, which, you know, we still do things comfort us.

They feel good to eat. And I don’t think that’s entirely bad. You know, sometimes we want a piece of chocolate because it’s delightful and it brings us joy, and that’s good. Like, that is a good sensation. And so I think but when we say I’m not going to do that, we actually have to turn all of that to Jesus, and we have to look to him to meet all of those needs instead of being able to meet those needs ourselves.

So I’m learning through fasting some incredible things about God and myself. I’m learning that I’m okay, that I’m going to be okay. It’s actually translating into the bigger kind of story of my life when like I’m waiting on God. The practice of fasting is teaching me that I can wait, and I’ll be okay.

So this little weekly practice is teaching me in the bigger story arc of my life. God’s going to meet my needs. You’re going to be okay. It’s been surprising to me.

And I will say, you know, again, what can you fast from?

This may be just something to start small with. Lent is a great season to try fasting this you know, traditionally that is something that has kind of hung around in the Christian Church, especially in the liturgical churches as we practice the fact of giving up something and you know, it may be food. It may be though that you’re giving up something that provides the same kind of comfort to ourselves. Maybe it’s the fast of like shopping or it’s a fast of social media.

So there’s lots of different things I think we can do besides food or it’s a fast from sugar because that’s something that we know we turn to. And we want to actually just say, no, I’m going to turn to Jesus instead. So there’s a lot of different ways that we can fast. And I would encourage people to also maybe give that one to try to.

But when you were talking about how we notice how this man in the silence noticed something about God that he would have missed otherwise, that’s for sure what’s happening for me with fasting, I am noticing things and growing and in my faith in ways that I wouldn’t have had I not been fasting.

Kay >> I love that. That’s great. And recently I did have a conversation with Nika Spaulding about Lent, so this episode will be out after Easter. But next year if y’all want to know more about Lent and what it is and what, why we practice it? And about fasting is being one aspect of that, that is a great conversation that you can find out on our website or so what other.

So what other . . . ?

Jodie >> Yeah. Well, I think, you know, one more that I want to make sure that we talk about is community, and I’ve been thinking a lot about community because of course, again, when we look to Jesus, we see that he lived very communal. He of course had his 12 disciples which was actually more—we just have 12 men named. And there were women that were with him also. But he also had an even smaller group of people that he took further in and, and spent time with in a different way.

And so this, this aspect of community I think is really important. And when he died and when he ascended, he basically called them together and, and called them to unity. I mean, that was his final prayer is that the people would be unified, that we would be together and have each other. I was just recently reflecting on Mark 6, and this is the passage where Jesus, (it’s kind of early in the ministry) and Jesus is sending the disciples out and he gives them the authority over evil spirits.

And then he says to them, “Don’t take anything with you. Don’t take an extra tunic. Don’t take food. But go. And if you’re welcomed in a home, stay there. If you’re not, shake the dust off your sandals.”

And I was thinking if I had been one of them, I would have been so scared. Just go and depend on the generosity and the kindness of people. And maybe they’re not going to receive us and all of those things.

And then it dawned on me, he sent them out together. He sent them out in pairs so that they would not be alone. And I mean, this is an echo of Scripture, right? I mean, we say the cord of three strands is not easily broken. If one falls down, the other can pick him up.

But these are passages that maybe we use in marriage, but I think they are also passages that matter to us as sisters in Christ, as brothers and sisters in Christ, as the community of followers of Jesus. We need each other and all of these practices that, especially fasting is and Sabbath actually, that I’ve been trying to weave into the fabric of my life in this season.

I’m doing it in community and that has made all the difference. I wake up on Monday and I am not like, “Yeah, today’s the day I fast,” but I wake up and I think today we’re going to fast. And my husband fasts with me and then we come back at the end of the day and we share—what were you intentionally praying about today? How did you see God?

And it makes all the difference to know that not only am I doing it with somebody, I’m going to process that experience with them, even silence and solitude—while it is going away—And we were even talking about these retreats and experiences where you’re actually doing it in community. You’re being silent and you’re being alone, but you’re coming back into the community and you’re saying, “Hey, this is where I think God’s leading me. This is what I think I heard God say.”

So I think all of these spiritual practices, one of the most important ones is community, and that they should all be done in community. And I think that’s a really difficult spiritual practice for a lot of us.

To stick with people, it gets uncomfortable getting to know people. They rub us the wrong way or it’s inconvenient, and it’s easy to give up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing, as Scripture says. And the call is for us to stay together.

And so that’s the other thing I would encourage listeners, especially leaders in ministry, because I think that can be one of the lonely spaces. It can feel like you can’t be really honest with people, or you’re the one that’s leading everybody and they’re looking to you to care for them and to pastor them. And to be there, you know, their Under-shepherd to lead to Jesus.

And I would say that’s even more important for us as ministry leaders to find people, our people and to be in community. So start somewhere and keep investing.

Kay >> Yeah, I totally agree with that. In fact, I this for this year and next year starting January 2025 through all of ’26, I invited some other women to read through the Bible with us. Two years we’re going to do in two years. And so we’re all on the same plan.

We’re all doing it, and we’re going to get together every six weeks and kind of talk further about it once a week and text them and get just what did you see this week. How did God speak to you this week?

And I’m hoping that the fact that we’re doing it together will keep some of them going because I know how hard it is. These are people who have not read through the Bible before. And I know how hard that is. I probably tried five times before I actually made it all the way through the Bible. And then I was behind and I had to go a little bit into the next year, but I did finish.

And so I’ve done it many times since then. But I was hoping that that practice of community will be the bond that can really help them overcome the problems I had in doing it.

Jodie >> Yeah, I think community is—it’s that extra little, you know, we want to give up and yet we know that there are people around us who also want to give up. But we’re doing this together and I’ve got people to kind of stand in solidarity with me and maybe a little accountability, if that’s what we need. Because the first time I read through the Bible, it was also because I was doing it with somebody. I did it in community.

I tried multiple times like you to read through the Bible, and then you get through like Leviticus and you’re like, I’m just done. And it doesn’t make sense to me anymore. You miss so much if you stop there and you don’t you know, don’t get the whole story, you know, in that one narrative arc.

And so, yeah, I just think community is critical for us as believers, as followers of Jesus to help each other.

Kay >> Yeah, we really need each other. We really need each other. So. Well, thank you so much. Do you have some final words for our audience before we end today?

Jodie >> Yeah, I think the you know, the thing that I would want to say is a little bit what we started with is start where you are. And if one of these felt like, oh, yeah, I want to try that, that sounds interesting to me. Then start small, start where you are, give yourself grace. Look into Scripture—where do you see it practiced? How is it practiced?

Find a good resource and read about it. There’s know most spiritual, any spiritual practice that we talked about today. There are tons of resources on that are great, that will help you just, you know, give you an extra support, maybe help you think through what does it look like to do this in a non-legalistic way. And then just start and see where you go.

Kay >> Yeah, I love that. I’m going to ask you now that you would maybe give me a small list of resources that we could put on our website. And so for those of you out there who you hear, yeah, there are a lot of books, there are a lot of articles thing you want some specific options.

So I’m sure that Jodie will not mind giving me a short list and we will put it on our website. It’ll be under Video Podcast Extras on our menu. And you can find those there and that will be helpful.

I know I always like having some suggestions from people who have read and practiced the kinds of things that I’m trying to do.
>I also wanted to mention that we have a number of episodes with Jodie, and we did one just a year ago on why have a personal retreat.

And one of the things that I learned in that is that she had just written a personal retreat that you can take. And the idea is it’s for people who are facing maybe a new season in your lives. Do you want to explain that a little bit more, Jodie?

Hey, it’s basically a guided time to help you look back over the past season of your life and maybe what is God saying that’s done and that’s good? And what is current in the current season of our life? You know, there’s a lot of things that even if God is calling us to make a change, don’t change about our lives—who we’re married to, our children, our stage of life, things like that.

And so what are the things that we carry with us? Then how is it that God’s maybe inviting us into this new season and what does that look like? And I use scripture meditations. I use guided like Lectio Divina. So you’re hearing Scripture and just spending time with the Lord and asking him to help you hear what he has for you in his word and to help you move forward.

So, yeah, that’s what it is.

Kay >> Yeah, I thought it was great. And I went through it myself and just spent several hours here at home on a weekend when my husband was out of town. And I found it just in some ways just wonderful to have that unhurried time with the Lord that forced me to do that and really got me to think about how God, what God was saying to me at this particular season in my life.

So I recommend that as well. You can find that at jodieniznik.com, and you can also get hold of Jodie there if you’d like to contact her so thank you.

Oh, and I wanted to also mention some of the other podcast episodes that we have done with Jodie. She talked about leadership issues. So if you are a leader in your church, or you influence some friends of yours, it would be really helpful for you to maybe listen to some of Jodie’s other episodes that we’ve done with her.

And you can find those at BeyondOrdinaryWomen.org and go to our Media List on the pulldown menu where you can search for her name and all of her stuff will come up.

So I highly recommend all of our conversations that we’ve had together. So thank you again, Jodie, for joining us today. I know that this will be very, very helpful and possibly really life changing for a lot of people out there.

Jodie >> Yeah, I hope so. It’s always a delight be with you.

Kay >> Thank you. And we hope you’ll join us again on our Beyond Ordinary Women podcast.