How to Actually Go Deeper With God This Year

Audio Transcript

Welcome back to Going Deeper. I’m so excited for season two, and I’m really glad I decided to make this a seasonal podcast. It’s amazing how much can change in just a couple of months—how much God can teach you in that time. I feel so refreshed and ready to be here, especially compared to how I felt at 36 weeks pregnant. You guys, I was exhausted. My body was done, and I was having to edit episodes—literally editing all of my heavy breathing out of them. I’m super grateful I don’t have to do that anymore!

A little life update: I’m definitely not pregnant anymore. I’m three months postpartum. My third baby—and second daughter—Tatum was born on October 7th. The labor was wild. I got the natural delivery I wanted, though it wasn’t at all how I planned. That’s a whole story for another time, but she’s doing well, and I’m doing well. Just navigating the adjustment from two to three kids. I thought I had no time with two—and now, with three, I really have no time. That’s why we’re up late recording this episode, but that’s okay because we’re here and doing it.

I’m just so excited to be back behind the mic, hoping to encourage you with what the Lord’s put on my heart, and hopefully get your heart fired up and your spirit stirred for the new year.

I’ve already outlined season two, and I’m pumped about the topics we’ll cover—mental health, church, stewarding our homes, self-care—the list goes on. Lots of good stuff coming your way, so make sure to subscribe and follow along.

Also, a quick word on marketing—because I’m a marketing nerd (for those who don’t know, I have a degree and background in marketing). The most powerful marketing tool is word of mouth—no ad or promotion can compete with it. So please, tell people about this podcast! If you love it, share it with a friend, copy the link, post it on social media—do all the things just because you love me, right? Because you love this podcast and enjoy listening. That means the world to me.

Before we dive in, let’s keep up the trend of recommendations. I’m always listening to or reading something, and I want to share it with you.

First, I’m doubling down on a recommendation Whitney Lowe made a few episodes ago: Domestic Monastery. It’s a quick read but packs a punch. I even have a quote from it on my screensaver because it was so impactful and inspiring. Here it is:

“There’s a rich spirituality in these principles. Stay inside your commitments. Be faithful. Your place of work is a seminary. Your work is a sacrament. Your family is a monastery. Your home is a sanctuary. Stay inside them. Don’t betray them. Learn what they are teaching you without constantly looking for life elsewhere and without constantly believing that God is elsewhere.”

So good. Highly recommend that book.

Next, I’m hooked on the Back Porch Theology podcast with Lisa Harper. I’ve listened to two or three episodes so far, and I don’t know how I missed her before, but it’s great. I’ll link the episodes I enjoyed down below.

And lastly, a song: SEU Worship’s Deep Dive—it’s my jam. I listened to it again today, and it really reminded me of my heart for this podcast and for believers in general to move beyond surface-level faith.

Part of the lyrics go:

“I don’t want a surface relationship. I want more than this. Take me on a deep dive into your heart. Show me every detail and unveil all that you are.”

That’s exactly where we’re headed in today’s episode: How do we go deeper in 2025? What does that look like, and how do we do it?

I want to encourage and inspire you—and give you some good food for thought.

And again, recognizing that we live in a society where apathy in faith, lukewarmness, or shallow Christianity is not just common—it’s the norm. If you resonate with my story, and if you find yourself thinking, “Man, I don’t want to be content with a shallow or lukewarm faith anymore. I want to go deeper. I want to take a deep dive into the truth of the gospel, truly get to know Jesus, and surrender it all to Him,” then you’re in the right place. I hope to encourage you today because everywhere we look, especially with the new year, culture is pushing some new tip or trick or pathway to health, wealth, productivity, growth, success, or happiness. It’s never-ending—and exhausting to keep up with, especially with influencer culture nowadays. There’s always a new online course, weight loss program, or some challenge to try.

I don’t think I mentioned this earlier, but I’ve really enjoyed reading Dane Ortlund’s book Deeper this past year. It partly inspired this podcast. His premise is that sanctification isn’t about doing more or being better—it’s about going deeper into the wondrous truths of the gospel, the very truths that saved us when we were first baptized and first believed. The culture nowadays often tells us to do more, be better, look at ourselves, improve ourselves. And especially in our highly individualistic, self-focused society, that brings both negatives and some seemingly positive things, like body positivity and self-care (which we’ll cover in a future episode).

It’s not that you can’t look at yourself, but what I’ve found personally—and what scripture shows—is that the more we look inward, the more issues arise. It either leads to selfishness, where we get stuck loving ourselves in ways that don’t produce outward love for others, or it leads to frustration and discouragement because, honestly, we suck at doing life on our own. Walking with Jesus relying on ourselves is just failure after failure. I know that from experience.

That’s why we have to look to Christ in a culture telling us to do more, be better, and fix ourselves. Jesus says, “Come to me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” His yoke is easy, and His burden is light. The ways of the world? They’re weary and burdensome. Our sin, struggles, and self-inflicted frustrations wear us down. But Jesus offers rest for our souls.

You don’t realize that rest until you surrender fully—going all in with a stubborn, persistent desire to fix your gaze on Him, even when you don’t know how to do that perfectly. We show up anyway.

Here’s the key: going deeper with God requires a heart sold out to Him—not a soul that feels obligated to show up out of some inherited religiosity. It’s a personal decision to say, “I’m done with half-hearted faith. I want all of You, Jesus, and I surrender myself to You.”

As we’ve said over and over, sanctification and spiritual growth are not about doing more or being better. Dane Ortlund says it beautifully: going deeper means going deeper into the wondrous gospel truths that washed over us when we were first united to Christ.

We like to think, maybe subconsciously, that once we’re baptized and saved, we move on from the gospel story. But that’s not true. We never move on from the gospel. The gospel saves and sanctifies.

So what is sanctification and spiritual growth? It’s actually simple—though not always easy. It’s about growing in two things: our closeness to Christ and our conformity to Christ. We want to be near Him, and we want to be like Him. These two are connected: the closer you are to Jesus, the more you’ll be conformed to His image.

Christy McClellan, a Bible teacher who often teaches from a Jewish cultural context, says something that’s stuck with me. She says it’s a Jewish phrase that we want to be “covered in the dust of our rabbi.” What does that mean? It means being so close to Jesus—following Him so closely—that the dust from His sandals kicks up and covers us.

So if you take nothing else from this episode, take this: Stop looking at the world. Stop looking at yourself. Start following Jesus. Be so close to Him that you’re covered in the dust from His sandals. That closeness results in conformity.

2 Peter 1:3 says everything we need for life and godliness is already given to us through Christ—through His grace, His church, and His Word. Jesus is the Word made flesh. From Genesis to Revelation, He reveals Himself to us. We want to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Now for some practical steps on how to go deeper this year:

First: You don’t need a clean slate, a perfect past, or a tidy life to grow spiritually this year. Come as you are—dirty, broken, messy, battered, bruised. Hear me on this: Don’t wait until you feel cleaned up enough to come to God. Just show up. He will meet you there. And when you do, you won’t be the one doing the cleansing. Jesus purifies, washes, and makes us white as snow.

Second: Don’t let your sin, failures, mistakes, bad days, or missteps keep you from coming back to God. Showing up once or twice or even for a few weeks is good—but what really matters is keeping coming back, especially when you want to quit. There’s actually a day known as the “quitting day” for New Year’s resolutions (somewhere mid-January). Don’t quit on God.

Discouragement is one of Satan’s favorite tactics to keep you distant from God. It points the finger at you, makes you look at your shortcomings, and keeps you from looking at Jesus and His righteousness. If you’re like me and struggle with discouragement or perfectionism, you can actually use this awareness to your advantage...

Satan wants to use our discouragement to keep us distant from God. But if we’ve done a deep dive into the gospel—if we have a holistic understanding of the gospel of grace—we’ll be able to look at ourselves with a healthy dose of disdain and allow those feelings to point us to the one who is perfect: Jesus.

So either your sin and shortcomings will discourage you away from God and create distance, or they’ll cause you to run to Him because you know He’s the one who will give you what you need. He’s the one who will help you, encourage you, wash you white as snow, cleanse you, grow you, mature you, and love you.

In order to stay close to Jesus so we can be conformed into His image, we almost have to just get over ourselves. And I mean that in the best way possible. We have to get out of our own way, assume the role of an empty vessel—a broken jar of clay—and humbly continue to show up at His feet. His grace is endless. Our pastor says it all the time: endless second chances. That’s the good news of the gospel.

Here’s the thing—there’s this divine dance between God coming to us and us coming to God. He will always come to us and always show up, but He gives us the freedom to respond. We get to decide how close we are to Him. We get to decide whether we run or hide, or whether we stay connected to the vine.

So thirdly, stay connected to the vine. There’s a verse somewhere in Scripture that says, “Apollos planted, I watered, but God gave the growth.” We don’t do the growing. When it comes to going deeper with God, spiritual growth, and sanctification, we’re not the ones doing the growing. Even though our highly individualistic, self-focused culture loves to put all the emphasis on us, we are not the heroes of the story, and we’re not the ones who bring about positive change.

John 15:5 says, “You can do nothing apart from Christ.” Nothing good happens apart from Christ. Nothing happens apart from Christ. What I love about John 15:5 and the whole “abide in the vine” message is that all a branch has to do—literally—is remain connected to the source, the vine. The vine does all the work. The vine brings the fruit. The branch’s only job is to stay connected.

It’s like, you have literally one job as a Christian. We like to think there are all these things we have to do, but in reality, there’s one thing. It’s like the story of Martha and Mary. Jesus says to Martha, “Martha, you’re troubled about many things, but only one thing is necessary.” Only one thing. Mary chose the better portion, and it won’t be taken from her.

Choosing the better portion means choosing to look to Christ, depend on Him, rely on Him, love Him, worship Him, read about Him, study Him, and know Him. That’s it. That’s how we grow.

Fourth, piggybacking off the third, we need to simplify our understanding of sanctification and growth. We tend to overcomplicate it. We want to do all the things. We don’t just want to do the one thing. It’s almost like we don’t get satisfaction if it’s just, “Oh, I did my one thing for the day”—like seeking Jesus. We want to do all the things. Maybe there’s some sense of control or pride in that.

But you’re going to grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus when you focus on the grace and knowledge of Jesus above everything else.

So simplify what it looks like to follow Christ. Crack open your Bible—and keep cracking it open. Show up to church—and keep showing up. Join a small group—and actually keep showing up and get involved in people’s lives.

Okay, so now for some practical things.

First, communing with God through His Word and prayer is absolutely vital. Jesus is the Lord, and you’ll find Him on every page. To look to Him is to read the Word, study the Word, memorize it, and meditate on Scripture as much as you possibly can. Just as much as you possibly can.

I did a whole episode called No More Excuses: How to Read and Study the Bible Every Day. If you want encouragement on that, definitely listen to it. Make Bible reading and study a discipline in your life. If you do nothing else, do this.

Discipline is not legalism—I think I’ll do a whole episode on that soon. I also talked about it briefly on Instagram in a pinned video. Discipline yourself and challenge yourself this year to be in the Word every day. No excuses.

There’s the YouVersion app, the Dwell app for listening, audio Bibles—endless options. Choose your mode. Read, slow study, memorize, meditate—what will you do? Just commit to showing up.

Second, prayer. For me, in this season, two ways I pray are journaling—especially prayer journaling—and communal prayer throughout the day.

Dane Ortlund says in his book: move through your day praying. Let God be your moment-by-moment Father. Hear His voice in Scripture in the morning and turn that Scripture into prayer. Then let that communion with Him send you off into your day, talking to Him all day long. So good.

So time in the Word and prayer—those are the disciplines we really need to develop if we want to go deeper with the Lord this year.

Third, live in community with other believers. Be part of the body of Christ. You will not grow if you’re doing it alone. I’ve said this over and over and will continue to say it: the local church is vital to your growth, to your walk with God. You have to do it. It’s not meant to be done alone, and Scripture never models solitary faith.

If you’re not in a church, not in a small group, not in a Bible study—do that.

Fourth, lean on the Holy Spirit for wisdom and strength. Don’t do it alone. Don’t rely on your flesh—it will fail you. Depend on the Spirit to give you what you need, not only to get through today but to show up.

If all you can say is, “God help, Holy Spirit help,” say that. I say it all day long. And He does help. He guides, corrects, nurtures, loves, disciplines, gives wisdom and strength—depend on Him.

To recap: we go deeper with God by deepening our relationship with Jesus, our understanding of His gospel, and our dependence on His grace and Spirit. We have been given everything we need.

No self-help book, no influencer, no special prayer journal, no perfect church, no perfect streak matters ultimately. What matters is your heart, your commitment, and your discipline to show up every single day at Jesus’ feet and let Him change you.

So here’s a question for you: what needs to be removed from your life so you can have more room for Jesus? So you can be closer to Him?

Is it sin? Because sin separates us from God. Is it a temptation? A distraction? Entertainment? Netflix? Scrolling social media? Unhealthy relationships? Your own agenda? Control?

What’s getting in the way? What’s a barrier? Is it your own inability to fully surrender? Is there something you’re holding on to? An idol you’re unwilling to let go?

Pray about it. Talk to someone about it. Pinpoint it. Call it out.

And then ask yourself: how can you add more Jesus into your day today? How can you swap scrolling social media for prayer? Can you swap Netflix for an edifying book? Can you pray while you wait in line instead of distracting yourself? Can you read a Christian book instead of something less nourishing?

How can you just get more of Him?

We find Him in the Word, we sit with Him in prayer, talk about Him with friends, see Him in other believers, and share about Him with others.

How can you pack more Jesus into your day? Maybe have worship music on while driving in the car.

That’s all I have for you today. I hope you were encouraged. I hope something resonated.

Please take a moment to leave a review if you feel led. Copy the episode link and share it with a friend—it would mean the world to me.

If you have any lingering thoughts or questions, don’t hesitate to reach out via email.

Thank you so much for listening. I’ll catch you in episode two.