Why God Never Asked You to Grow Like Everyone Else 

Maybe the problem isn’t that you aren’t trying hard enough. Maybe you’ve been trying to grow according to someone else’s design.

Have you ever watched another woman talk about her time with God and thought, I wish I could do that?

• She gets up at 5:00 every morning.
• She fills pages in her prayer journal.
• She reads through the Bible every year.
• She has a system for studying Scripture that seems to work beautifully for her.

So you try it too. You buy the journal. Download the Bible plan. Set the alarm. Commit to the routine. And maybe you even stick with it for a while.

But eventually, it becomes one more thing you’re trying to make yourself do. And that’s when the questions start.

Why can’t I be more disciplined?

Why can’t I stick with this?

Why does everyone else seem to be better at this than I am?

But what if you’ve been asking the wrong questions? Maybe the problem isn’t that you’re not trying hard enough.

Maybe you’ve been trying to grow according to someone else’s design.

Hi, I’m Deneen Troupe-Buitrago, your Faith Growth and Work Alignment Strategist™. I help busy Christian women understand how God uniquely designed them to grow so their faith can fuel the work and leadership He’s called them to.

I want to challenge an assumption many of us have carried for years because:

God never asked you to grow like everyone else.

We Learn How to “Do” Faith From Other People

Most of us learned what a growing Christian is supposed to look like long before we ever considered how God uniquely created us.

We learned from our families.

• Our churches.
• Pastors and Bible study leaders.
• Books and devotionals.
• Friends.

And now we can scroll through social media and see an endless stream of morning routines, prayer practices, Bible study methods, and spiritual disciplines.

There is nothing wrong with learning from other people. I’ve learned wonderful practices from others throughout my own faith journey. The problem begins when someone else’s practice becomes our measurement of faithfulness.

Instead of asking:

Is this helping me know God and become more like Christ?

We begin asking:

Am I doing what a good Christian woman is supposed to do?

Those are two very different questions.

God Didn’t Make Us All the Same

Think about the people around you.

Some people need to talk something through before they understand what they think.

Others need quiet and time to process.

Some naturally notice details.

Others see patterns, possibilities, and connections.

Some people want to understand why something is true.

Others immediately consider what that truth means for people and relationships.

We accept these differences in almost every other part of life.

• We know people learn differently.
• Work differently.
• Lead differently.
• Communicate differently.
• Process differently.

So why would we assume that when it comes to our relationship with God, suddenly everyone should experience spiritual growth in exactly the same way?

God didn’t design you uniquely and then expect you to ignore that design when you grow with Him.

Your design matters to your discipleship.

For example, imagine two women decide they want to spend more time in Scripture.

The first woman loves structure. She chooses a reading plan, gets out her notebook, starts asking questions about the passage, and finds herself wanting to understand how everything fits together. Thirty minutes later, she looks up and wonders where the time went.

Her friend tries the exact same plan.

Ten minutes in, she’s distracted. She’s read the words, but nothing feels like it’s sinking in. So she closes the plan, reads one Psalm slowly, and takes one of the verses outside with her on a walk. As she walks, she talks with God about what’s happening in her life. That’s when the Scripture begins to come alive for her.

Same desire.

Same God.

Same Scripture.

Different ways of engaging.

The second woman doesn’t necessarily need more discipline. She may need to stop measuring her faith by what works for the first woman.

Different Doesn’t Mean Anything Goes

Now, this is important.

Personalized faith does not mean we simply do whatever feels easiest or avoid anything that challenges us. There are foundations of the Christian faith that aren’t dependent on personality or preference.

• Scripture matters.
• Prayer matters.
• Worship matters.
• Community matters.
• Obedience matters.
• Serving others matters.

But how we engage with those things can look different.

One woman may love studying a passage of Scripture word by word, digging into context and asking question after question. Another may read that same passage and need to sit quietly with one verse, allowing God to bring it deeply into her heart.

One woman may connect deeply with God through worship music. Another may experience His presence most profoundly in silence.

Someone else may feel especially close to God while serving another person. And another may find herself talking with God while walking outside and noticing His creation.

The question isn’t which woman is doing faith correctly. The question is whether what she’s doing is helping her know God, follow Him, and become more like Christ.

Your Faith Shape Gives You Clues

This is actually why I created the Faith Shape Quiz.

There are different ways we naturally tend to engage with God, and understanding your Faith Shape can begin giving you clues about why certain practices have felt meaningful while others have felt like something you had to force.

Take the free Faith Shape Quiz and discover how you naturally tend to connect with God.

And as you’re looking at your result, don’t think of it as another label you’re supposed to fit into. Think of it as a starting point for noticing.

Oh…maybe that’s why this has always been meaningful to me.

Or:

That explains why I’ve struggled so much with that.

Those observations matter. Because sometimes what we’ve interpreted as a lack of discipline is actually a lack of alignment.

I Had to Learn This for Myself

I had to learn this in my own faith life. For years, I knew how to do the things serious Christians were supposed to do. I knew how to study the Bible. I knew how to participate in church. I knew how to follow the disciplines.

Those things weren’t bad. But over time, I began noticing that some of my deepest experiences with God happened when I had space.

Quiet. Time to reflect. Room to notice what God was doing beneath the surface.

Quiet retreats became especially meaningful to me. I began to understand that needing that kind of space wasn’t evidence that I was doing faith incorrectly. It was part of how God had designed me.

That realization didn’t make me abandon Scripture, prayer, worship, or spiritual discipline.

It changed how I approached them.

And that made an enormous difference.

What If You Stopped Trying to Fix Yourself?

So here’s something I’d like you to think about.

What is one spiritual practice you’ve tried repeatedly but struggled to maintain?

• Maybe it’s journaling.
• A certain Bible-reading plan.
• Morning quiet time.
• Long periods of prayer.
• Scripture memorization.

Instead of immediately deciding that you need to try harder, ask yourself:

Was this practice actually helping me connect with God, or was I doing it because I thought I should?

Then ask another question:

When have I felt most engaged with God?

Think about those moments.

What were you doing? Were you alone or with other people? Were you studying? Creating? Serving? Singing? Walking? Talking? Reflecting?

Pay attention to those moments. There are clues there. Because the goal isn’t to create a spiritual routine that makes you look like a mature Christian.

The goal is transformation. To know God. To become more like Christ. And to live your faith in the real life He has given you.

How Has God Designed You to Grow?

This is the question that eventually became foundational to the work I do today.

Instead of continually asking:

What should I be doing?

I want women to begin asking:

How has God designed me to grow?

And the Faith Shape is only one part of that answer. That’s why I created the Faith Design Profile™ Experience.

The Profile goes deeper to help you understand the patterns you may not be able to see on your own: how you’re wired to connect with God, how you process spiritual truth, where you may be trying to force practices that don’t fit, and the kinds of rhythms that can support your faith in the life you’re actually living.

You don’t necessarily need another Bible study plan, devotional, or list of spiritual practices to try. You may need clarity about you. Because when you understand your design, you can stop spending so much energy trying to become someone else’s version of faithful.

You can build rhythms that help you stay connected to God and allow that relationship to overflow into your work, leadership, relationships, and everything He’s called you to do.

God never asked you to grow like everyone else. He asks you to follow Him. And He already knows exactly how He made you.

Maybe it’s time you understood that design, too.

I’d love to hear from you: What is one way you’ve discovered that you connect with God differently than someone else?

Tell me in the comments.

And if you’re ready to go beyond experimenting with different practices and really understand how God has designed you to grow, take a look at the Faith Design Profile™ Experience. I’ll put that link below as well.

Be filled to overflowing,

DeneeenTB