Daily Holy Habits + Radical Shifts to Rediscover God after Disappointment, Disillusionment, and Despair.
Introduction
I've always thought it was interesting how we associate the color "blue" with feelings of melancholy or sadness. One could argue blue is not sad per se — but rather calming and pretty, like the ocean. On some of my favorite spring days, "blue" feels like happiness personified. Airy, familiar, peaceful. Full of energy.
Except when it doesn't.
The expression of "blue" in regard to my countenance can represent both peace and sadness. Blue holds duality. The same exquisite feeling of joy I feel in the tenderness of soft blues — associated with still water and peacefulness — can easily turn into an emotional storm of deep blue sadness: hardship, longing, loss, and heartbreak. Blue like jazz.
And I think my innermost experience of God is like this. Blue and dual in its nature. Light and peaceful. Cold and lonely. Because the context of my life — the things that shape my emotions — matters enormously.
"Have you ever experienced times when you wanted to set everything on fire?"
Maybe you can't remember the last time you felt peace or contentment. A smile seems elusive. Disappointment takes hold, and over time, you start to notice a deep hopelessness settling in. Discouragement, gloom, and sadness are the shades of blue you dwell in. The grip of despondency is relentless, gradually turning any spark of encouragement into spirals of shame.
To Him Who Is Able is a space in-between two truths — honesty about what you are experiencing now and freedom to heal and grow. A chance for you to surrender, respond, and allow God to move.
Does your faith feel like you're just swapping punctuation marks at the end of the same sentence? Once, the truth of God's love for you was filled with excitement and certainty — period. Now it feels more like a question. Or even worse, an unfinished thought. When did trusting God become so confusing, overwhelming, and burdensome?
But what if you are exactly where you need to be? Maybe you're not as lost as you think. Even though you're feeling blue or miserable or lost or sad — God is present. Maybe you don't need a spiritual jumpstart. Just a re-communion of you (exactly as you are) and God.
I'm using this freedom language because it's easy to picture. You can readily recall, can't you, how at one time the more you did just what you felt like doing — not caring about others, not caring about God — the worse your life became and the less freedom you had? And how much different is it now as you live in God's freedom, your lives healed and expansive in holiness?
Romans 6:19 (The Message)No matter how disillusioned you might feel about God and life, I understand. It wasn't too long ago that I found myself facing my own ominous and neglectful relationship with God. I was simply at the end of my rope. My life felt flat, meaningless, and weighted down by confusion and shame.
After a few multi-state transitions coupled with personal and professional setbacks, my relationship with God had dwindled down to a stale and suffocating predicament. How could I let this happen? When did it get so out of whack? Me — a wife, a mom, and a pastor. When did I become a shell of the woman I once knew?
I didn't need another intense study or a stereotypical God quote posted on Instagram. I wanted present, real-time results. I longed to marvel at God's grace again — not from a platform, but in the personal space of my everyday life.
Exhausted and undone, I called my therapist. Slowly, we started to work together — figuring out how to love my messy self and find peace with God once again. I started implementing more authentic and helpful spaces to practice acceptance and surrender. This is where I adopted Holy Initiatives and Radical Shifts.
And one thing kept coming up over and over: You shall be holy.
So roll up your sleeves, get your head in the game, be totally ready to receive the gift that's coming when Jesus arrives. Don't lazily slip back into those old grooves of evil. As obedient children, let yourselves be pulled into a way of life shaped by God's life, a life energetic and blazing with holiness. God said, "I am holy; you be holy."
1 Peter 1:15–16 (The Message)Thanks be to God that He is kind and gracious enough to meet you and me where we are — but not leave us the way we've been. Holiness isn't linear. It's relational. That's why it expands. God doesn't call us to do holy; He instructs us to be holy. Over the next 12 weeks, let's find out what that looks like for you.
The Experimental Guide
This guide is customizable — designed to flex around your personality, your story, and your season of life. Over the next 12 weeks (84 days), your plan will be your roadmap to daily holy habits and a closer walk with God. Think of it like a good family recipe: years in the making, with ingredients that make it uniquely yours.
Best practices: Be prepared (Bible, journal, this devotional). Be creative (pray and piece together habits that fit you). Be wholehearted (notice what you're noticing — and don't beat yourself up).
Morning and evening. Your own words, the Lord's Prayer, or guided liturgy. Start once a day if twice feels like too much — just start.
Write out three to six things you're grateful to God for each day. This simple act shifts your heart and reorients your mind toward what's real.
Follow the weekly reading plan. Make notes, underline, highlight. Then close with a worship song — or bring it into your commute, your walk, your kitchen.
Two good habits to grow toward. Two unhelpful patterns to release. You choose — guided by prayer, honesty, and Scripture. This is the core of the whole journey.
This list isn't exhaustive. Add giving, art, serving, meditating. Make it yours. God loves hanging out with you — even when you're baking bread or paying bills.
Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature ... rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language ... clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.
Colossians 3:5–14 (NIV)Your Holy Initiatives and Radical Shifts stay the same for all 12 weeks. Take your time choosing. Pray, journal, ask the people who know you well. This is not a shame list — it's a safe space to practice holy living.
| Week | Title | Book | Days |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Supremacy of Christ | Colossians 1 | 1–7 |
| 2 | Hidden Treasure | Colossians 2 | 8–14 |
| 3 | Holiness Unveiled | Colossians 3 | 15–21 |
| 4 | Mature & Fully Assured | Colossians 4 | 22–28 |
| 5 | New Birth & Living Hope | 1 Peter 1 | 29–35 |
| 6 | Chosen by God | 1 Peter 2 | 36–42 |
| 7 | Set Apart | 1 Peter 3 | 43–49 |
| 8 | Living for God | 1 Peter 4 | 50–56 |
| 9 | God Cares for You | 1 Peter 5 | 57–63 |
| 10 | Participatory Faith | 2 Peter 1 | 64–70 |
| 11 | Beware! | 2 Peter 2 | 71–77 |
| 12 | Holy & Godly Lives | 2 Peter 3 | 78–84 |
Before You Begin
Take time to pray through this before you start Week 1. Your plan is uniquely yours — write it out, commit to it, and come back to it whenever you need a reset. It takes about 66 days to build a habit. You have 84. Let's go.
What is my prayer plan?
How will I practice prayer every day?
What is my plan of gratitude?
How will I practice this every day?
What is my Scripture and worship plan?
What are my practical steps to practice these throughout the week?
What is my plan?
How will I practice this?
It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
Luke 6:31 (NIV)Paul opens by establishing the deity and supremacy of Jesus — His superiority and authority rule over the cosmos and over everyday life. As you read this week, ask yourself honestly: Is Jesus actually Lord of my life?
Paul warns: do not be deceived by hollow philosophy or human tradition. In Christ alone are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. This week, explore what it means to be truly rooted and built up in Him — not just intellectually, but experientially.
Paul shifts from doctrine to practice. Set your mind on things above. Put to death what belongs to your earthly nature. Clothe yourself with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. This is where your Holy Initiatives and Radical Shifts come alive on the page.
Paul closes with practical instructions: devoted prayer, wise action, gracious speech. He names his coworkers by name — a reminder that faith is never a solo journey. Who is walking alongside you?
You have been given new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This hope is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading. As you read this week, ask honestly: Do I actually live as though this is true?
You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's special possession. These aren't words of flattery — they are your new identity. This week, explore what it means to live from that identity rather than toward it.
Peter calls believers to a life that stands out — not through performance, but through inner character, gentle speech, and readiness to give an account for the hope within you. This week, consider what being set apart looks like in your actual relationships.
Since Christ suffered in his body, arm yourself with the same attitude. The time has come to live for the will of God rather than for human desires. Peter's words here are urgent, practical, and — if you let them land — deeply freeing.
"Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you." Peter closes his first letter with a pastoral heart — reminding leaders to serve with humility, calling all believers to resist the enemy with a firm faith, and anchoring everything in the certainty that God himself will restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.
Peter opens with a breathtaking invitation: you have been given everything needed for life and godliness, and through these you participate in the divine nature. Faith is not passive. This week, add to your faith with intention.
Peter doesn't shy away from warning his readers: false teachers exist, and they are destructive. But the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials. This week is an invitation to discernment — to know the truth so thoroughly that counterfeits become obvious.
The day of the Lord is coming. And because it is, Peter asks the most clarifying question of the entire devotional: What kind of person ought you to be? The answer is holy and godly. Not perfect — oriented. Facing toward the new creation with everything you have.
84 Days Later
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever!
Ephesians 3:20–21 (NIV)You showed up. God was faithful. That's the whole story.