What is a Spiritual Goal?
Jan 28, 2026Summary
Ladies, do you feel like you are checking all the religious boxes—going to church, reading scriptures—but still feeling disconnected and drained? In this episode of the Arise, Women of God podcast, host Tamara K. Anderson joins co-founder Wendi Christensen and board member Jen Brewer to strip away the fluff and define exactly what a spiritual goal is and why it should be your highest priority.
We explore the "Acceleration Principle," based on Matthew 6:33, which teaches that when you seek the Kingdom first, God accelerates and manages every other aspect of your frantic life. Jen Brewer breaks down the "Gym Analogy," explaining why having a "religious membership" isn't enough to build spiritual muscle—you have to actually lift the weights of connection. Wendi clarifies the crucial difference between religion (the organization) and spirituality (the connection), and why crises often serve as the wake-up call we need to look upward. If you are ready to move from low-urgency living to high-importance connection, this episode will change how you view your daily checklist. Tune in to learn how setting just one spiritual goal can transform your business, parenting, and health.
Episode Takeaways
- The Acceleration Principle: Spiritual goals act as an accelerator for everything else in your life. When you prioritize your connection with God (Matthew 6:33), He helps you manage your business, health, and family more effectively than you could on your own.
- Q2 Living: Jen explains Stephen Covey's "Quadrant 2"—activities that are low urgency but HIGH importance. Spiritual goals (like prayer or nature walks) rarely have a deadline or a "failing grade," so they easily get pushed aside. We must intentionally schedule them because they matter most.
- The Gym Analogy: Just having a gym membership doesn't make you healthy; you have to do the workout. Similarly, going to church (religion) gives you the tools, but your personal spiritual goal is the actual "lifting" that builds your connection with God.
- Connection vs. Checklist: A true spiritual goal isn't just about reading 10 pages of scripture to check a box. It is about the relationship on the other side of those pages. The goal is connection, not completion.
Resource
Are you ready to move from a "gym membership" mentality to real spiritual strength? Download our FREE Guide to Goal Setting. It includes the "Sacred Brainstorm" to help you find your personal connection point with God. 👉 Download the Guide Here: https://www.womenwarriorsoflight.com/offers/WyaLn2gS/checkout
Reflection Questions
- Are you currently living in "Q1" (high urgency) or "Q2" (high importance)? What is one spiritual activity you keep pushing aside because it has no "deadline"?
- How does the distinction between "religion" (the tool) and "spirituality" (the connection) change how you view your Sunday habits?
- Have you ever experienced the "Acceleration Principle"—where putting God first actually saved you time in the long run?
- If God is your "workout partner," what specific spiritual muscle is He asking you to build right now? (Patience, trust, silence?)
Transcription
Tamara K. Anderson
00:00:01.840 - 00:00:35.500
Ladies, what is a spiritual goal and why should you prioritize it in the grand scheme of things? If you've ever felt disconnected or drained, this episode is for you. And by the end of today's episode, you will learn why.
Spiritual goals have an acceleration principle tied to them, meaning they help everything else that you do.
We're going to help you solve the challenge of frantic living by showing how to put the most important connection first so that God can manage everything else. Stay tuned.
Intro
00:00:35.500 - 00:00:45.572
Ordinary women Extraordinary faith. When God calls, we say yes.
The Arise Women of God Podcast
Tamara K. Anderson
00:00:45.572 - 00:01:28.710
hello, and welcome to another episode of the Arise Women of God podcast.
I'm your host, Tamara K. Anderson, and today I'm joined by my Women warriors of Light co founder, Wendi Christensen and one of our amazing board members, Jen Brewer. And we're stripping away all the fluff today to define what a spiritual goal is.
First, we're going to define the connection factor, moving just beyond checking the box. Second, we'll actually look at why these goals feel low urgency but are actually high importance.
And finally, we'll share the gym analogy that will completely change how you view any of your religious habits. So first, so first, let's have Wendi share about defining the connection.
Wendi Christensen
00:01:29.510 - 00:02:30.450
Well, when I look at spiritual goals, because I set personal spiritual goals, it's my connection with my higher power, whether that be God or Jesus Christ or whatever you believe your higher power to be, it's establishing a stronger, better connection with them. That which is different than kind of an everyday goal. Right.
If I'm going to do a physical goal of eating healthy, then I'm gonna, you know, try to cut maybe sugar out or drink more water or mentally, if I'm gonna do some meditation. Meditation can be part of a spiritual goal, but I think that differs a little bit more than a spiritual goal. Might be a prayer.
So maybe I am going to intentionally connect with God, or maybe it's going to be delving into the scriptures. Maybe I'm not a scripture reader and I want to hear the Word of God.
So I'm going to start reading the Word of God so that I can connect more with Him. So to me, it's more about the connection that you have with God or your higher power.
Tamara K. Anderson
00:02:30.850 - 00:02:52.610
I love that Wendi focused on connection. It's so easy to think of a spiritual goal as just reading 10 pages, but the real goal is the relationship on the other side of those 10 pages.
Jen, you had a thought about how we prioritize these internal desires versus our daily checklists. Would you mind Sharing that.
Jen Brewer
00:02:53.090 - 00:04:28.560
It's the connection to me. It's the.
It's kind of my. My soul's desires, what I want internally to become. And it's that connection to my higher power.
For me personally, I have this obsession with wanting to learn mysteries of God, like what, what I'm going to do in that way, to do that. Whether it's meditating, prayer, work, going on long walks in nature.
To me, the spiritual goals are, if you're familiar at all, with Stephen R. Covey. He talks about these quadrants of living and he categorizes them into like, urgency and importance.
And we tend to live in this quadrant where high urgency is what gets our attention the most. And there's one that's called category. I call it Q2 living because it's low urgency, but it's high importance.
But because the urgency isn't there, we let it fall down in our category of our daily checklist, like going for a walk into nature. Nobody's going to be breathing down my neck if I don't do that.
If I don't open scriptures and read them, I'm not going to get a failing grade if I'm in class or school. There are things that we don't have that immediate reward system built in it.
There are things that we have to purposely make time to do and purposely focus on those I think fit into that, that spiritual goal, because there's not a deadline for it.
Tamara K. Anderson
00:04:28.880 - 00:06:27.760
That Q2 living is where the magic actually happens, but it's also where the adversary tries to keep us out. We think we don't have time for a spiritual goal, but the truth is we don't have time not to To have one.
When we seek the kingdom first, everything else starts to fall into place. So if I have a spiritual goal and I'm better connected to God, if other things come into my life, he helps me manage them. And so I love that.
Jen, you talked about this type of goal is probably more important in the long run because Matthew 6:33, Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you.
So even though it may only take five minutes of our day, that five minutes of our day can accelerate and improve all other aspects of our life because he will then guide us because we're connected to him, and hopefully we're listening a little bit better.
But I think it's so interesting that when life often gets crazy, that is the thing that kind of gets pushed to the back burner, like, oh, this isn't as important, because all these things, my to do is like 10 million miles long. And I. I'm just in kind of a frantic state. But when we're in those frantic states, that's what we need most of.
We need God's help to get through all of our to do list. And so I, I love that we defined what a spiritual goal is, but I also love that we've talked about how critical it is to every part of our lives.
It's an acceleration principle. When you're connected to the source, you make better decisions in your business, in your parenting, in your health.
But Wendi, you also mentioned that sometimes it takes a crisis for us to actually look upward and set these goals. Would you mind talking about that?
Wendi Christensen
00:06:28.160 - 00:08:06.170
Especially in those quiet moments? Or maybe it's A crisis or an emergency in our lives where you may have somebody close to you that has learned they have cancer or that they're struggling, and it just causes you to pause and to look at your life and just evaluate where you are and kind of what's going on and to go, okay, is there something bigger and grander out there? And if so, how can I reach out to it? How can I connect? And I think that's another place where a spiritual goal could come into place.
I want to set a goal to become closer or to know God, or maybe it's Jesus Christ, where I can understand them, become more like them. And I think it's a little different than religion, right?
We have religion over here, which is great, but it's organized, and it helps us to learn more about them and to understand them. And then you have spirituality. And spirituality is that desire to truly connect to them.
And I think the religion can be great and wonderful in helping us. Like, it gives us avenues where we can read the Scriptures, understand them, learn about prayer, how do I even pray? And.
And to connect with other people that are doing so and to fill that community. I do think that that is important.
But it's kind of a gateway to getting to that spiritual connection where it's just me with God or this higher power and looking at what is that bigger thing than me, and how can I become that? How can I stretch? How can I reach farther and become more than I am currently right now?
Jen Brewer
00:08:06.330 - 00:09:15.790
Wendi, I love that.
I love that distinction that you gave between religion and spirituality, because I think so many people confuse the two and then throw both out when one doesn't work. And when you were saying that, it made me think, oh, yeah, just because I have a membership to A gym doesn't make my body healthy.
Just because I go to the gym doesn't make my body healthy. I have to actually use what's at the gym and apply what's at the gym and build my muscles that it's such an individual goal.
That's a tool that I can use. Now. The gym is not the end all, be all. That's not going to determine whether or not I'm physically healthy or not.
And I think religion is that exact thing, that kind of the registered religions, that that's the tool that we have that we can go to partake or to utilize habits. But even just showing up isn't going to get our spiritual life going. We have to actually apply it.
We have to actually engage, we have to actually utilize that skill because it all comes down to that inside personal connection that we have.
Tamara K. Anderson
00:09:16.110 - 00:09:34.060
If you feel like you've been standing in the gym without lifting any weights, please don't be discouraged. So setting a spiritual goal means you are not working out alone and you have a partner who wants this connection even more than you do.
Wendi, would you mind sharing a little bit about this?
Wendi Christensen
00:09:34.620 - 00:10:26.070
When you set a spiritual goal, I don't think you're alone in it. I think God is aware that you're setting a spiritual goal. He loves and cares about you enough that he wants to partner with you on that journey.
And so when you set a spiritual goal, you've got angels, you've got people, you've got helpers that are going to help you. You're going to always hit some resistance because Satan doesn't want you to grow spiritually.
I think this life is all about that connection with God. And Satan wants to keep you separated from God. That's something I learned especially studying the creation.
Satan's role is to keep you separated from God, but God's role is to keep you connected to Him. So doing the things that you need to to stay connected to him, that's what a spiritual goal is to me.
Tamara K. Anderson
00:10:27.110 - 00:11:02.990
If you're ready to move from just having a gym membership mentality to actually seeing spiritual results, we at Women warriors of Light would love to help you take that first step. We put together a free goal to guide setting for Christian women.
It includes a sacred brainstorm to help you find your personal connection point with God and a don't quit emergency kit for when the adversary tries to pull you away. We'll drop the link in the show notes below. Until next time. May you be blessed and strengthened as you connect with God.
May you arise do it God's way. God strong.
