RULE OF LIFE & SPIRITUAL PRACTICES
Why Do I Feel Spiritually Stuck?
Why am I doing the normal religious things but still feel disconnected from God?
Many people who follow Jesus are doing the things they were taught to do. They attend church, listen to sermons, read Scripture, serve, pray, join groups, volunteer, give, and try to live faithfully. From the outside, the rhythms may appear healthy and mature.
Yet underneath all of that activity, many quietly wonder why their life with God still feels thin, disconnected, anxious, or strangely unchanged. They believe in Jesus, but they do not always experience the peace, freedom, love, joy, security, and nearness with God that Scripture seems to describe.
At Soil & Roots, we do not think this ache should be dismissed as immaturity, laziness, or lack of sincerity. Many people are not spiritually stuck because they do not care. They are stuck because the formational ecosystem around them is incomplete. They may have access to good teaching, faithful sermons, Bible studies, worship services, books, podcasts, and volunteer opportunities, yet still lack the fuller set of elements that historically shape human beings into a particular kind of person.
The problem is not that modern Christian institutions offer nothing formative. The problem is that they often do not provide all five elements of deep formation together.
The Formation Gap
One of the core Soil & Roots ideas is what we call the Formation Gap. The Formation Gap occurs when people who follow Jesus do not have meaningful access to all five formative elements: time, habits, community, intimacy, and instruction. These elements are not unique to Soil & Roots. They are present in virtually every intentionally formative ecosystem we know.
Early childhood forms us through time, repeated habits, family community, deep relational intimacy, and constant instruction. Marriage forms us through shared time, repeated rhythms, daily practices, vulnerability, and ongoing learning. College, the military, recovery groups, athletics, medical training, apprenticeships, and professional development all assume that people are not formed by information alone. They are formed through immersion in an ecosystem that includes substantial time, repeated practices, trusted community, increasing vulnerability, and instruction that is embodied, tested, and refined over time.
Yet when we turn to many modern Christian institutions, these elements are often fragmented. We may receive instruction without much time. We may be invited into activity without formative habits. We may belong to a group without trusted intimacy. We may sit near people without being deeply known. We may hear true things about God without being immersed in the kind of community where those truths are slowly practiced, tested, explored, and embodied. That fragmentation is the Formation Gap.
Why Information Alone Does Not Form Us
This does not mean sermons, Bible studies, books, classes, and church services are bad. They can be very good. Instruction is one of the five elements, and we need it. But instruction by itself is not enough to form the whole person because human beings are not brains on sticks. We are integrated creatures with bodies, stories, desires, wounds, loves, habits, fears, imaginations, relationships, and hidden assumptions about God, ourselves, others, and the world.
If our spiritual journey mostly addresses the thinking part of us, then much of who we are remains untouched. We may learn what Jesus taught while our desires continue being formed by hurry, fear, shame, comparison, consumption, isolation, or the need to be approved. We may believe true things about God while our daily rhythms continue training us to live as if we are alone, unsafe, unloved, or in control.
This is one reason people can believe sincerely and still feel spiritually stuck. They may not need one more piece of information as much as they need access to a fuller formational life.
Beliefs, Ideas, and the Hidden Places of the Heart
At Soil & Roots, we often distinguish between beliefs and ideas. A belief is what we say we affirm. An idea is what actually governs us. We may believe God loves us, but live from the hidden idea that we must earn His nearness. We may believe Jesus offers rest, but operate from the assumption that our value depends on usefulness, productivity, or spiritual performance. We may believe the Kingdom of God is present and available, but live as if life is mostly up to us.
Those deeper ideas and desires function like an operating system beneath the surface of the person. They shape what we notice, what we fear, what we pursue, what we avoid, and what we expect from God. Until those hidden places are uncovered and brought into the presence of Jesus, we can keep repeating the same patterns while wondering why more information has not changed us.
This is why feeling spiritually stuck is often not merely a motivation problem. It may be a formation problem. The deeper soil of the heart has not yet been tended.
Spiritual Practices and a Rule of Life
When people feel stuck, they often look for a new practice, plan, habit, or rule of life. That can be very good, but only if we understand what spiritual practices are for. Practices are not techniques to make God perform. They are not a way to become impressive, disciplined, or more acceptable to Him. Spiritual practices are ways of making space for God to meet, search, heal, reorder, and form us.
A rule of life is not a rigid religious schedule. It is a deliberate framework for the rhythms, practices, relationships, and commitments that shape our life with God. It asks a very practical question: What kind of life am I actually arranging around Jesus? Without some kind of rule of life, most of us drift into the rhythms our culture gives us by default — hurry, distraction, consumption, isolation, outrage, comparison, and exhaustion. With a wise and gentle rule of life, we begin to create space for a different kind of formation.
The Good Life Begins in a Formative Ecosystem
The Good Life Jesus offers is not merely a better religious routine. It is life with God — a life increasingly marked by peace, security, love, freedom, joy, and participation in the present Kingdom. But that kind of life does not normally emerge from fragmented formation. It grows in soil where time, habits, community, intimacy, and instruction are present together.
So if you feel spiritually stuck, it may not mean you are failing. It may mean Jesus is inviting you into a deeper and more complete formational ecosystem than the one you have known so far. The question is not simply, “What should I do next?” but “What has been forming me? What rhythms are shaping my loves? What hidden ideas are governing me? What kind of community am I living in? Who really knows me? What instruction am I receiving, and where is it being practiced over time?”
Spiritual practices, a rule of life, trusted community, honest self-knowledge, and formative instruction are not the destination. They are part of the environment in which we open our lives to the God who forms us in love. If you feel stuck, there may be more happening than you realize. The ache itself may be an invitation into the fuller, deeper, five-element life with God you have been longing for.
Related Resources
Go deeper into formation, the Formation Gap, and the Good Life with God.
Episode 11 · We Are All Being Formed
We are always being formed by something. This episode introduces one of the core Soil & Roots convictions: our hearts are shaped by the ideas, habits, relationships, rhythms, and environments in which we live, whether we notice them or not.
Episode 26 · The Formation Gap
If spiritual formation requires time, habits, community, intimacy, and instruction, what happens when our normal discipleship environments only provide some of those elements? This episode explores the Formation Gap and why many people who follow Jesus feel spiritually stuck
Episode 96 · Soul Care
Soul care invites us to pay attention to what is happening beneath the surface of our lives with God. This episode explores the deeper places of the person — thoughts, emotions, desires, wounds, and hidden assumptions — that often remain untouched by information alone.
Episode 134 · Rediscovering the Good Life
The Good Life is not a religious slogan or a future escape, but the life with God Jesus embodied and offered. This episode explores why peace, security, love, freedom, and joy are meant to become increasingly real in everyday life.
Begin the Deeper Journey
Feeling spiritually stuck does not necessarily mean you are failing. It may mean you have been trying to grow in an incomplete formational environment — one that offers pieces of discipleship without the fuller ecosystem of time, habits, community, intimacy, and instruction.
Download What in the World Is Deep Discipleship? and begin exploring the Soil & Roots framework for the deeper life with God: how hidden ideas shape the heart, why information alone does not form us, and how Jesus invites us into a more integrated journey of becoming like Him.