You’ve got the journaling Bible with the pastel tabs. You’ve got the morning playlist that transitions from Maverick City to a lo-fi Proverbs remix. You’ve got the devotional app, the Christian influencer podcast and the color-coded habit tracker that includes “pray” right between “hydrate” and “read Atomic Habits.”
In other words, you’re crushing spiritual growth.
Except… maybe you’re not?
Because somewhere along the way, we stopped asking how to become more like Jesus—and started asking how to become the best version of ourselves. The vibe shifted from “pick up your cross” to “optimize your quiet time.”
We’ve confused spiritual formation with self-help. Holiness with hustle. And we’ve slapped “growth” on things that are mostly just personal branding in disguise.
It’s not just anecdotal. According to Barna, over 70% of churchgoers say their faith is “very important” to them, but only about 1 in 5 say they’re actually growing. Meanwhile, young adults report record levels of spiritual exhaustion. But hey, at least our prayer journals look good on Instagram.
“We live in an achievement-obsessed culture,” said Dr. Alicia Britt Chole, author of Anonymous: Jesus’ Hidden Years and Yours. “And we’ve imported that mindset into our discipleship. We want instant fruit and Instagrammable faith.”
In other words, we want the transformation of Jesus with the timeline of Amazon Prime.
But spiritual growth was never supposed to be efficient.
In Galatians 5, Paul describes maturity not as a checklist, but as fruit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. You can’t hustle your way into gentleness. You can’t productivity-hack your way into patience. Fruit grows slowly. Quietly. Often underground.
Jesus compares spiritual growth to things like seeds in dirt and yeast in dough—not exactly the kind of metaphors that pair well with a content strategy.
And that’s the problem. Self-help asks, “How do I get better?”
Spiritual growth asks, “How do I become more like Christ?”
One centers you. The other requires you to surrender.
“There’s a huge difference between personal development and discipleship,” said Pastor Rich Villodas. “The first asks how I can climb the ladder. The second asks how I can pick up my cross.”
Picking up your cross won’t get you likes. It won’t go viral. It probably won’t even feel productive. But it’s the only way to the kind of transformation Jesus promised.
And to be clear: there’s nothing wrong with reading self-improvement books, hitting therapy or using a journaling app. All of those things are good. But they’re not spiritual growth unless they’re actually making you more like Jesus—not just more emotionally regulated or aesthetically curated.
Let’s be honest: reading a new Christian book every month doesn’t automatically mean you’re spiritually maturing. Neither does listening to podcasts or doing “devo dumps” on TikTok. Real growth often looks less like progress and more like pruning.
Jesus says in John 15: “I am the vine; you are the branches … apart from me you can do nothing.” Abiding doesn’t come with an aesthetic. It comes with obedience. With dependence. With the kind of quiet faithfulness that doesn’t always get a dopamine rush or a motivational quote out of it.
So what does actual spiritual growth look like? Probably something like this:
- Read slower. Not to finish, but to be formed. (Re-reading the same Psalm for a week will do more for your soul than flying through a 90-day Bible plan you forget by lunch.)
- Be still. Not just “do breath work.” Actually be quiet. Give God more than five distracted minutes before scrolling again.
- Get uncomfortable. Ask the Holy Spirit where you’ve been faking it. Then listen.
- Find people. Real ones. Spiritual formation doesn’t happen in isolation or in DMs. It happens around tables, in living rooms and through awkward vulnerability.
At the end of the day, Jesus never called us to optimize our life. He called us to lose it. And yes, that’s hard. But it’s also how you find it again—full of joy, full of peace and way less obsessed with your own performance.
So maybe it’s time to stop editing our sanctification to fit the feed. Real growth isn’t always pretty. But it’s real. And that’s better than perfect.
