The Myth of Automatic Growth

“Time doesn’t equal transformation.” Just because you’ve been near the truth, even for years, doesn’t mean it’s been formed in you. In this kickoff episode of her Rule of Life series, Michele Kus exposes the myth that more time passing and more Bible studies and more sermons and more books automatically lead to spiritual growth. With wisdom drawn from her seminary course (a work in progress!), Michele explores why so many of us feel stuck — despite being steeped in endless Christian content — and how we can finally break through and make real progress in our spiritual journeys. It’s simpler than you might think! 

If you’ve been consuming without actually being changed, this episode is your wake-up call. Michele walks you through how to reflect on the actual rhythms that are shaping your soul right now — on purpose or by accident — and invites you to create sacred space for real, grace-based growth. Plus, she shares a simple 10-minute practice you can try this week to start shifting from information consumption to intentional transformation. Don’t miss it! 

Interested in our private mentorship group? Connect with Michele here to stay in the loop!

Chapters

• 0:00 Happy Friday!
• 5:37 The Myth of Automatic Growth
• 9:28 Today’s Kus Word
• 15:41 What Is a Rule of Life?
• 17:01 Creating Sacred Space
• 25:59 This Week’s Invitation
• 27:20 Closing Prayer
• 29:16 Connect with Michele here!

Transcript

Michele: 0:00

It's Friday, April 25th, and this is Today's Kus Word. It's Friday, fam, and you know what that means: Time to light the fuse and drop another fresh freedom bomb. This is your spiritual growth coach, Michele Kus, dropping in with your weekly Kus Word to inspire you, challenge you, and throw some miracle grow on your soul. Happy Friday, my friend. Hope you had a wonderful Easter weekend. I know I did so.

Michele: 0:33

Every year our church hosts a morning worship service at this huge historic theater in our town that was built in 1928, almost 100 years ago and this theater is absolutely gorgeous and it always smells like popcorn in there and there are over a thousand seats in there and almost every single one of them was filled on Easter Sunday. And I've been playing keys for that Easter service for the past four Easters now and in all the years I've been playing keys on worship teams, which is probably well over 15 years now, that is the one service that always makes me nervous because it's so many people and so many moving parts, and we had our kids sing and dance and we had our youth group get up on stage and present, we had a message, we had testimony videos and lots of worship. So it was absolutely wonderful, and we now have a thousand people from all over our town who heard the gospel and we filled that theater with the magnificent presence of God, so I fully expect that presence to linger on for a while. So if someone innocently walks in to come watch the Minecraft matinee and suddenly gets clobbered with some leftover Holy Ghost, I think we all know what church is to blame. Yeah, that would be mine.

Michele: 2:02

Anywho, I had some really encouraging feedback from last Friday's episode called What's So Good About Good Friday?, and I'll read just a couple of those messages. One came in from Sacramento, California, so refreshing, thank you so much for speaking truth. And another one from Northbrook, Illinois, Michele! Mic drop on this Good Friday message. I will definitely share it. Well done! I love your feedback, guys. And just FYI, whenever you text the show, those are one-way text messages. So when you text the show, I can't actually text you back. In fact, I can't even see your name or your phone number, just your city and your message. So if you want me to know who you are, you have to put your name in there. I can, however, pin your message to my website, which is pretty cool. So if you check out TodaysKusWord. com and click on Fan Mail, you can see some of your messages there. Pretty cool.

Michele: 3:08

So last Friday I dismantled ooh, maybe five or six commonly held beliefs in the church, including, but not limited to penal substitutionary atonement theory, the difference between paying for sins and forgiving sins, sin as a soul sickness requiring a healer instead of a crime requiring punishment. The fact that the Trinity was never broken apart when Jesus was dying on the cross, meaning that the Father never abandoned Jesus on the cross. And when Jesus said My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? on the cross, he was actually quoting Psalm 22, not crying out in a moment of desperation. So that episode was definitely full of juicy nuggets and it actually got a lot more downloads than I was expecting. So I was pretty excited about that and some of those, I think, really challenged some of you. So if you haven't checked out last Friday's episode, make sure you check that out. I'm really proud of it.

Michele: 4:20

And so today I'm kicking off a series that is actually based on a course that I am developing for my seminary. I'm actually developing a full-blown certificate program. It's a certification in spiritual formation which is going to consist of 10 online courses and this particular course that I'm writing right now is course number 10 of 10. So it's the last one in the series, and the name of the course that I'm writing is called Crafting Your Personal Rule of Life, and I decided it would be fun to pull out some of the juicy morsels from that course and offer them to you here on the podcast. So this series will probably run for a few weeks, but I think you're really going to enjoy it, especially if you love spiritual growth, personal growth, emotional intelligence, healthy self-awareness, those kind of topics. I love that stuff or if you just love being challenged to rethink how you're doing life. And if you've never heard of a rule of life before, no worries, because we'll cover all of that.

Michele: 5:37

So let me kick us off with this question have you ever felt like you should be further along in your spiritual journey than you currently are? So maybe you've been walking with Jesus for a long time. So you've read all the books, you've heard all the sermons, you've sat in church, you've done the devotionals, but you still feel kind of stuck or kind of stagnant. Maybe you're feeling frustrated, maybe you're feeling burnt out or just kind of spiritually flat. Have you ever hit a season in your life like that? So one of my goals for this course that I'm writing and also in this podcast series that I'm kicking off today, is to help you get unstuck and to set your heart on fire again and to help you move upward and onward in your spiritual journey in a healthy way. So I'm calling this first episode in the series The Myth of Automatic Growth.

Michele: 6:43

So here's the deal: Spiritual maturity does not just happen by osmosis. The time that you have spent in church does not equal your transformation. It is entirely possible to sit in church services for 10 or 20 or 30 or 40 years and be personally at the same place you are spiritually, as you always were when you first came to believe. That is a tragedy. It's a tragedy to take another trip around the sun only to be in the exact same place that you were a year ago in your spiritual journey. Right" I mean, it's just a waste of time. And then you meet others who just met Jesus two weeks ago and seem to have this incredible depth and maturity about them, and it's like what's the deal? What is the difference?

Michele: 7:44

So here's the secret: Proximity to the truth doesn't necessarily mean formation by the truth. So you can be near the truth. You can hear it, you can sing it, you can even preach it, and you can still remain totally unchanged. You can know all the right answers, memorize all the scriptures, you can fill your shelves with all of the Christian books, and you can still live from a place of fear or control or self-loathing or performance, or you name it. So the truth isn't magic, right? The truth is actually relational. The truth is in fact a Person, right, and his name is Jesus. Jesus said I am the Truth.

Michele: 8:37

So truth doesn't form us, really spiritually form us, until we slow down long enough to let it sink in, until we sit with it and wrestle with it and, most of all, surrender to it and let it really have us. And I use this term spiritual formation a lot. If you are in the evangelical world, you probably more often hear the word discipleship, but it just means letting yourself be formed by the Spirit. So spiritual formation happens not when the truth passes through your ears or even your brain, but really when it sinks down into your heart and it starts transforming your habits. So here is Today's Kus Word: Time doesn't equal transformation.

Michele: 9:36

Just because you've been a Christian for 10 or 20 or 50 years doesn't mean that you've actually grown 10 or 20 or 50 years deep in Christ. Spiritual maturity is not guaranteed by how long you have been a believer or by how long you've been sitting in churches, or by how many sermons you've heard or how many Bible studies you've attended or how many devotionals you've read. Transformation does not ride in on the back of time. It actually rides in on intentionality and presence and participation. So time can be a container for growth, but only if we are fully engaged and attentive and responsive to what the Holy Spirit is actively doing inside of us. And without intention, the time just accumulates, the time just passes by right. But with intention, with that grace-filled intention, your time on this earth can become sacred ground. So let's bust a myth real quick, because you guys know how much I love busting myths on this show. So here's the myth: More time, more knowledge, more noise equals more growth. Nope, that's a myth.

Michele: 11:07

We live in the most content-rich generation in all of human history. I mean, we have podcasts like this one, we have Instagram Reels and devotionals and apps and YouTube videos galore. So Eric Schmidt, who was the former CEO of Google, noted that until 2003, humanity had created about five exabytes of information. Don't ask me what an exabyte is, but that's how much information we created and, remarkably, by 2010, seven years later, that same amount of information was being generated every two days. Now that statistic is now 15 years old, so imagine how much information we humans are generating now. So the amount of content that's available to us in this day and age is mind-boggling, and you can spend your whole life gobbling up all the information and, believe me, I know what this is like.

Michele: 12:20

My number one strength on the Strengths Finder is Input. So I love gobbling up all the information and sorting it and categorizing it. But you can do that only to find that it hasn't changed you at all, and that's because transformation doesn't happen at the speed of information. So we have this overwhelming influx of information and it presents this unique challenge and also a unique opportunity for spiritual growth. So, number one information versus transformation. We have access to a huge amount of information, but none of that will automatically lead to your personal transformation. We feel like it does and we think it should, but it actually doesn't. You can absolutely gorge yourself on videos and teachings and sermons and online schools and still remain in spiritual infancy.

Michele: 13:29

So spiritual formation requires intentional engagement, intentional reflection and application. It's not just going to happen with information consumption. The second thing is this idea of creating sacred space. So we live in an age of constant connectivity. We're always bumping into people, we're always interacting with people most of us anyway and so carving out intentional time for solitude and prayer and reflection becomes an essential spiritual discipline in our lives. So establishing something called a rule of life can help structure these kinds of practices and help you foster some deep communion with God amidst all the noise out there.

Michele: 14:39

And a third point is this point of discernment. So with this huge proliferation of information that we're all exposed to on a daily basis, discernment, like real spiritual discernment, becomes crucial. Not all information is edifying. Not all information is even accurate or truthful or beneficial right? So we have to learn to get these discernment filters activated and operating at high gear in this day and age. So cultivating a discerning heart is going to help you navigate relationships and the digital landscape with some good, solid wisdom. So during this podcast series we're going to touch on all of these points: the information versus transformation, creating a sacred space, and discernment.

Michele: 15:41

So a rule of life, this is not just a list of religious chores. This is a rhythm of grace. It's a simple, Spirit-led way of structuring your life around what matters most. If you've ever read the book Essentialism by Greg McKeown which, by the way, is an awesome book, highly recommend it definitely pick that up. But you can think of the rule of life as a spiritual version of essentialism. So a rule of life is not your to-do list, it's not legalistic, it's just a set of intentionally chosen holy habits and it's also a process of letting go of things that aren't serving us anymore. So when we talk about spiritual rhythms or crafting a rule of life, we're not talking about to-do lists or religious checkboxes or anything like that. We're talking about creating space for grace, for relationship, for transformation to happen in our lives. So let's talk a little bit about this idea of creating sacred space. I love this phrase creating sacred space.

Michele: 17:13

I am a hardcore introvert. Some of you are probably going to be shocked to know that if you know me in real life, I definitely present in the world as an extrovert, but I'm not. I love my alone time. I love my quiet time and I get fully recharged when I'm alone. I could spend hours here in my babe cave working on projects and just totally get lost in the work. I am much better at single tasking than multitasking, which is quintessentially introvert trait, and I prefer depth over breadth. So usually I would prefer to go deeper into fewer topics versus covering more topics, and we are going to spend in this series at least one episode, maybe more, on the differences between introvert and extrovert spirituality. It's pretty fascinating and I got certified on the Myers-Briggs way back in 1999 and actually wrote a book on the cross-section between spirituality and the Myers-Briggs. Fascinating stuff. So we'll dive deep into that on another episode.

Michele: 18:39

But in a world that runs at this breakneck speed, where multitasking and doing all the things in hurry is a badge of honor, creating sacred space can feel counterintuitive and to some of you it might actually feel lazy. So if you're a super productive person like me, creating space is going to feel very unnatural. You're going to feel like you're wasting your time. And here's a quick funny story: When I was in first grade our class was being super noisy, and so our teacher made all of us kids sit down and put our heads on our desks and relax for a while. Now, as an adult, I can see how this practice could help us reset our nervous systems and calm us down, but as a little six-year-old girl, it made me very upset. I was so upset that I told the teacher later that she shouldn't do that to us, because she was making us and I quote waste our lives. I came home from school that day and complained to my mom that my first grade teacher was not good because she was wasting our lives. So thank God, I have learned to chill out a little over the last 40-plus years.

Michele: 20:01

But in the kingdom of God, sacred space is essential, and what we might feel like is a waste of time, God sees as holy and time that has been set apart for Him and he treasures that. We see this all through Scripture that God created the world by separating and creating space, light from darkness, land from sea. He created space so that life and human beings could flourish, and Jesus often withdrew to lonely places. He made space to commune with the Father, and the Holy Spirit doesn't shout over our noise, he waits, he whispers, he is the still small voice. He fills the space that we make available. And I mean God rested himself right? On the seventh day and made it holy.

Michele: 21:03

So many of us say that we want transformation, and I believe we genuinely do, but we just haven't made room for it to happen. In fact, in my own church funny side note we actually wrote a song that came out of our church called Make Room, and it's a Community Music song, gorgeous worship song, and it says I will make room for you to do whatever you want to, right? But is that really the case if we have the worship service planned out down to the minute? And are we making room? Are you making room? And what do you want to make room for? And here's a question: What needs to be cleared away so that what you really want has room to flourish? So by creating sacred space, you're not forcing spiritual growth to happen, but you are tilling the soil and creating this environment for the Holy Spirit to come and move.

Michele: 22:17

And sacred space is this open space. It's set apart for the Lord. It's where you set down your striving and you just be. There's no to-do list. You are simply letting yourself be loved, and it doesn't require a monastery or a retreat center or even a special room. It might just be you sitting in your favorite chair, or you getting 10 minutes quiet in your car, which is very hard for some of you, or you may be turning an evening walk into this moment of presence and awareness and sacredness. It's any time where you can just say here, I am God, I'm listening, I'm willing, I am present, I am aware. Communing with the Lord is not about proximity, it's about awareness. Proximity isn't the issue. He is always near, he is always in us. We cannot be separated from the Lord, but the issue is awareness. Are we aware of Him? And creating sacred space helps us become aware. It is one of the most countercultural things that you can do in this world that is addicted to hustle, because creating space is all about saying hey, it's not about what I can accomplish right now, it is all about how deeply I can receive.

Michele: 23:55

So, whether you realize it or not, your whole life is already being shaped by rhythms. You actually already have a rule of life, whether you realize it or not, whether you have named it that or not. You have a schedule, you have screen time, you have your sleep, you have your self-talk, you have your reactions and responses to people. You even have your food choices. All of these things are forming you. So the real question is not am I being formed? It is, how am I being formed and is it the way that I want to be formed?

Michele: 24:34

So here's a couple questions to think about: What is your life currently forming in you? And what are your choices currently forming in you? Let me give you a quick example. If you want to get in shape let's say you want to get really buff, okay, but you have a bowl of ice cream every night. You have to ask yourself: Is this choice forming buffness in me, or is it forming a little fluff in me? Oh, my gosh, I just thought of that off the top of my head. That was funny, okay, moving on, so you're always being formed by something, whether it's by intention or just by default, like it just might be a habit.

Michele: 25:29

And this is your excuse to take a step back and look at your habits and say is this something that I actually want in my life? Is it moving toward the formation I want in my life, or is it actually moving me in the opposite direction? So no shame here, no condemnation. Don't get hard on yourself, don't beat yourself up. Just be honest with yourself and get curious. And if there's things you want to change, then you can change them.

Michele: 25:58

Here's your invitation. This week, between now and next Friday, I want you to take 10 minutes and just sketch out your current rule of life and it could be completely an unintentional rule of life. You might not have even thought of that phrase before. And do it without any judgment, do it without any self-condemnation, but just ask yourself some questions with curiosity. Things like what does my typical day look like? Or what does my typical week look like? Where does my time go? Where does my energy go? What are some of the rhythms in my day or week that are shaping me right now, and are there things I want to change? And then you can ask the Holy Spirit what do you want to grow in me in this season of my life? So those are just a few questions that you can kind of just make some space, get alone with the Lord and ask Him and maybe journal some things out and don't overthink it, but it can be a door to transformation. Just some of those very simple questions with God.

Michele: 27:20

So, as I close out this episode, let me pray for us. Holy Spirit, thank you that we don't have to force our own growth, but simply cooperate with you. We want to create sacred space for you, real space, so that Christ can be deeply formed in us. Space not to achieve anything, but to receive. Not to earn anything, but to rest in everything that you've already done and everything you are doing in us. Help us to say yes to the grace that's already moving in and through us. And we trust you to shape us and form us slowly, steadily and beautifully into who we truly are. You're not in a hurry, and so neither are we. We simply want to stay in step with you. In the powerful and beautiful name of Jesus. Amen. And that, my friend, is what I got for you today.

Michele: 28:50

I hope you enjoyed today's episode and, if you did, make sure you follow the show on your podcast platform so you don't miss a single episode. Or, if you're tuning in on YouTube, make sure you click subscribe and hit the notification bell. And if you loved it, share it with a friend. That is how the podcast grows by you sharing with your friends. And if this episode stirred something in you and you're interested in going deeper in this whole area of spiritual growth, personal growth and healthy self-awareness, I am actually going to start a private spiritual mentorship group that includes some exclusive teaching content that I am not putting on the podcast, and it's also going to include some live monthly Zoom calls with me. And if that sounds intriguing to you, then get in touch with me.

Michele: 29:53

If you know me, you know I am not a high pressure salesperson. So if that sounds intriguing to you, all you need to do is click down in the show notes where it says Connect with Michele here! When you click that link it'll take you to my Linktree and from there you can just join my email list. If you pop your email address in the box. That is the best way to stay in the loop with everything I'm doing, everything I'm building, and I promise I will never, ever spam you. I hate spam, but I will keep you in the loop on this private mentorship group if that sounds interesting to you. No pressure, of course. And with that, I will leave you the way I always do. Thanks so much for joining me today, and I will see you again next Friday for another Kus Word. Until then, have a great week.