From Little Faith to Great Faith: How to Move Through Your Leadings to Deepen Your Relationship with God

Do you ever feel like something’s missing in your faith life?
You’re doing all the “right things”—Bible studies, prayer, maybe even serving—but deep down, your connection with God still feels… shallow.

Here’s the thing: It’s not that your faith is broken. It’s that you’ve only been using part of the design God gave you.

Your relationship with Him is meant to start in your primary leading—the way He uniquely wired you to connect—but it’s supposed to grow deeper as you move through the other three leadings in your faith shape.

I’m going to show you how engaging all four of your leadings—Heart, Soul, Mind, and Strength—can take your faith from little to great, giving you a deeper, richer, and more authentic connection with God every single day.

Understanding the Four Leadings

Your faith shape is built on the foundation of Mark 12:30, where Jesus says:

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.”

Notice that little word: “and.”
Jesus didn’t say, “Love God with your heart or your mind or your strength.” He said, and.

Those ands are powerful. They’re not calling you to love God equally in all four ways, as if you have to divide yourself into perfect, balanced quarters. Instead, they’re an invitation to love Him deeply and fully, exploring every part of the unique design He gave you.

Here’s what that looks like in your faith shape:

• Primary Leading – This is your comfort zone, where connecting with God feels natural and easy. Maybe you’re naturally drawn to worship through music, or you love studying Scripture in a structured way.
• Secondary Leading – This is your support system, often what others notice most about you (if you are an introvert). It complements your primary, helping you engage with God in another dimension, but you may not fully recognize its value.
• Insight Leading – This is the quiet, often hidden part of your design. When you take the time to nurture it, it brings deep self-awareness, spiritual clarity, and intimacy with God.
• Aspiration Leading – This is your growth edge—the area you haven’t fully developed yet but where God is inviting you to step out in faith. It’s full of untapped potential and purpose.

When you begin with your primary leading—where it feels easiest to meet with God—and then intentionally move into your secondary, insight, and aspiration leadings, your relationship with Him begins to deepen.

Those ands create layers of connection:

• Heart and Soul,
• Soul and Mind,
• Mind and Strength.

Each “and” builds on the one before it, adding richness and depth to your faith life. This isn’t about adding more to your to-do list; it’s about fully embracing the way God designed you so you can experience Him more completely.

When you practice this daily—even in small ways—you start to notice your faith shifting. You’re not just surviving spiritually; you’re thriving.

The Introvert’s Dilemma

If you’re an introvert, here’s what often happens:
You lead from your primary space internally, but the world mostly sees your secondary leading.

Maybe you’re a Heart-led woman who deeply connects with God through emotions and intimacy, but in your work and relationships, you lean on your Mind-led tendencies—structure, logic, planning—because that’s what people expect of you.

This creates a sense that something is missing.
Because what people see—and what you think you’re leading with—doesn’t match the deepest part of how God designed you to connect with Him.

I know this because I’ve lived it.
I’m an introvert, and my primary leading is Soul. Quiet reflection, creativity, and intimacy with God are how I feel closest to Him.

But if you interacted with me, you’d probably think I was Mind-led first—because that’s my secondary leading. I was constantly in teacher mode: studying Scripture deeply, learning apologetics, and teaching Bible studies.

On the outside, I looked strong and confident in my faith. But on the inside, something always felt a little off. I was nurturing my secondary leading while unintentionally neglecting my primary.

When I finally discovered this, I made a change.
I began creating intentional space for my Soul-led connection with God—long walks where I prayed, quarterly quiet retreats where I unplugged from everything, and journaling that looked more like doodling with colors in my hand than writing structured prayers.

And that changed everything.
My faith life became richer, more intimate, and more aligned with how God uniquely designed me. I stopped feeling like something was missing, and I started experiencing a depth with Him that I didn’t even know was possible.

This is what happens when you stop living only in your secondary leading and allow yourself to thrive in your primary. It’s the first step toward moving from little faith to great faith.

The Extrovert’s Shortcut

For extroverts, the challenge is often the opposite.
You naturally stay in your primary leading, and it feels good there!

If you’re Strength-led, you’re always serving, always moving.
If you’re Soul-led, you’re constantly creating and sharing beauty.

But here’s the danger: you neglect your secondary leading—the quieter, more reflective part of your design that could balance and deepen your relationship with God.

And when that secondary leading is ignored, your faith growth slows. You stay busy but don’t always grow deeper.

Let me share a story to show you what this looks like.

Meet Jessica.
Jessica is an extrovert and very much Strength-led. She is the first to volunteer when someone needs help, always organizing events at church, and mentoring new believers in her women’s group. People see her as “the strong one,” and on the outside, her faith looks vibrant and alive.

But inside? Jessica felt… tired.
She loved serving but often wondered why she didn’t feel closer to God. She assumed the answer was to do more—more Bible study groups, more volunteering, more showing up. But the more she did, the more distant God seemed.

It wasn’t until she took the Faith Shape Quiz (and started creating a Personalized Faith Plan) that she discovered her secondary leading was Mind. That meant she needed structure, reflection, and intentional learning to balance the serving that came so naturally.

So, Jessica started small.
She began keeping a “God journal,” where she wrote down daily moments of gratitude and ways she saw God at work. She scheduled just one hour each week to sit quietly with Scripture—not for teaching or serving, but simply to listen and learn.

Within weeks, something shifted.
Her service no longer felt exhausting because she was also being filled. Her faith started to feel personal and intimate, not just productive. By engaging her secondary leading, Jessica created the balance that allowed her relationship with God to deepen in ways she had never experienced.

That’s the power of honoring not just your primary leading, but also the secondary one. It’s like adding a second dimension to your faith—a depth and richness that transforms “doing for God” into truly being with God.

You too can get started understanding your primary leading by taking the Faith Shape Quiz.

Building True Depth

Here’s where the magic happens.

The real depth in your faith life starts when you first balance your primary and secondary leadings. This is the foundation that allows everything else to grow.

• If you’re an introvert, that means honoring your primary leading first. Making sure that how you connect with God feels natural and life-giving before layering on the other dimensions.
• If you’re an extrovert, that means embracing your secondary leading. It’s not enough to live in the part of your faith that feels easy; you need the balance of that quieter, reflective space to deepen your connection with Him.

When you build this balance, your faith life stops feeling one-dimensional. It becomes grounded, sustainable, and ready for God to take you deeper.

Daily Examples for the First Two Leadings

Here’s what this balance could look like in a day:

• Introvert, Primary (Soul-led) + Secondary (Mind-led)
  • Start the morning with quiet journaling or reflective prayer (Soul-led)
  • Later, use structured study or a devotional plan to add focus (Mind-led)
  • End the day with a gratitude list to integrate what God showed you throughout the day
• Extrovert, Primary (Strength-led) + Secondary (Mind-led)
  • Serve someone intentionally during the day—help a coworker, check on a neighbor, or volunteer for a project (Strength-led)
  • Pause afterward to write or pray about where you saw God in that interaction (Mind-led)
  • Spend 10 minutes planning tomorrow’s devotional or prayer time to create structure and accountability

These simple rhythms keep you anchored in your design while gently stretching you toward balance.

Awakening the Insight Leading

Once you are rooted in daily practices in your primary and secondary leadings, something beautiful happens—your insight leading begins to awaken.

And here’s the key: your insight leading is unique to you. What it looks like, how it feels, and how it grows will depend entirely on your God-given design. That’s the beauty of creating a Personalized Faith Plan™ (PFP)—you know exactly what your insight leading is and how to nurture it.

For me, once I was consistently practicing rhythms in my primary (Soul) and secondary (Mind) leadings, I began to step into my Insight Leading, which is Heart.

That looked like:

• Becoming a more empathetic coach, able to meet women where they were in their struggles.
• Inviting other women to join me on my quiet retreats, sharing that sacred space with them.
• Opening up my own story—not just my successes but my failures—and allowing my vulnerability to become a testimony of God’s faithfulness.

Your insight leading will look different. Maybe it’s creating space to listen more deeply, practicing gratitude in new ways, or using your natural talents to connect with others in ways you’ve never tried.

The point is this— when you nurture your insight leading, you begin to experience deeper self-awareness and a more intimate connection with God that feels authentic to you.

Stepping Into the Aspiration Leading

From there, God will gently invite you into your aspiration leading—the area that may feel the most uncomfortable but holds the greatest opportunity for growth and impact.

For me, that next step was moving into my Aspiration Leading, which is Strength.
This showed up when I began leading mission trips with youth and women. I found myself:

• Creating dramas to share Bible stories with those we were serving.
• Translating for the group to help build bridges across language barriers.
• Organizing game times with children, using play to share God’s love in tangible ways.

It was stretching—way outside my comfort zone—but it also became one of the richest seasons of growth in my faith.

And that’s exactly what happens when you begin to embrace your aspiration leading. It’s where your passion and potential meet purpose.

The beauty of the PFP is that it shows you exactly where your insight and aspiration leadings are, so you can take intentional steps into them—not in someone else’s way, but in the way that fits the unique design God gave you.

What Happens When You Practice This Daily

When you intentionally engage your primary and secondary leadings every day, even in small ways, something powerful happens—you build a faith rhythm that is steady, sustainable, and growing.

This daily rhythm anchors you, helping you stay consistent instead of feeling like your faith is constantly going up and down. And as you remain faithful in those two areas, you’ll begin to sense God nudging you toward your insight and aspiration leadings, gently stretching you into deeper connection and greater impact.

Here’s what that begins to look like:

• Your prayers deepen. Honest, authentic conversations with God become natural.
• Your worship expands. You start noticing Him in the everyday moments—your desk, your car, your morning walk.
• Your study transforms. Scripture comes alive in ways that feel personal and relevant.
• Your service overflows. You serve from abundance, not obligation, and it brings joy instead of exhaustion.

It’s not about doing more; it’s about living fully in the design God gave you, so your faith life becomes whole, sustainable, and continually growing.

From Little Faith to Great Faith

Your faith grows deeper when you honor all four leadings God designed in you.

• You start with what feels natural in your primary leading.
• You build balance by nurturing your secondary leading.
• You gain clarity and intimacy as your insight leading awakens.
• You step into bold growth as you live out your aspiration leading.

This is how your faith moves from little—just getting by—to great—overflowing into every part of your life, helping you love God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength.

This isn’t a quick fix—it’s a rhythm.
When you consistently come to God in your primary leading and intentionally engage your secondary leading each day, your faith begins to find balance and stability.

As that foundation strengthens, you’ll naturally be ready to explore your insight and aspiration leadings as God nudges you, adding depth and richness to your walk with Him.

That’s when your faith grows stronger, steadier, and more joyful. You’ll stop feeling stuck or guilty because your faith finally fits the way God designed you. And you’ll experience the peace and freedom of a relationship with Him that is anchored, growing, and fully alive.

My wise woman, if this is stirring something in you, don’t ignore it. It’s time to stop wondering what’s missing in your faith life and start discovering the design God has already placed within you.

Take the Faith Shape Quiz to uncover your primary leading, and then let’s build your Personalized Faith Plan™ together.

One intentional step at a time, you can move from feeling stuck in “little faith” to experiencing the freedom, depth, and joy of a faith that fits you—and fuels every part of your life.

Now, let me ask: Which part of your faith life feels like it needs the most attention right now—what have you realized about how you are leading your faith life? Share your thoughts in the comments—I’d love to hear where you are in your journey.

Be filled to overflowing,

DeneenTB