Journalling, what used to be known as “Dear Diary” decades ago when pen still touched paper, has always been something I’ve struggled with. I start, sometimes go for up to a month or more at a time, then life happens and it’s hard to get back at it. Journalling is supposed to be a private expression of the struggles, thoughts, and processing that goes on in one’s heart and mind. But the most effective way for me to process, has been in a manner where at least one other person sees it. I’ve learned however, that it’s not just any person that I can “journal” to. The person has to be deeply trusted. If I sense alterior motives on the part of the person I am journalling to, I am not as willing to journal to them. If I get the feeling they don’t care to the level I need at the time, my journalling will cease too. The idea of journalling to God is something I have tried a few times to start, but for whatever reason, it hasn’t stuck.
The logic there is missing a few details, because God does read my emails to people and many times responds faster than they do! I know God reads email without a shadow of a doubt! I know He reads what I write when I’m journalling to someone, because half the time, the first journalled email will end up with a second or third by the time some major issue being mentioned is addressed, and it wasn’t the recipient doing the responding, it was God the entire time! I’ve seen this happen too often to mistake it for anything else.
Blogging and Facebook notes have made it a bit easier to process my thoughts in a more public setting. However that too has it’s limitations. There are things I would not be able to blog or write a note about in public, because someone in the list might read it and it could be involving them. But on the whole, this form of communication has made it easier for me to process among a wider group of people.
Many people keep prayer journals of their conversations with God. I agree that this is great for helping people look back and see just how many prayers God has chosen to answer and how He answered them. While I was going through my self-guided trip through the Psalms back in 2009 and 2010, I would journal every day’s thoughts on each chapter I read. Sometimes this meant taking two days for a given chapter, or in the case of Psalm 119, a day per alphabet stanza. Many of those notes made it into my first book project in some form or other as God continues to take me down the journey of learning to live everyday life as the Bride of Christ.
I am currently reviewing a 31 daily devotional by T.C.Spellen, a review I’d promised a full year ago now! She offers helpful habits to the woman waiting in the wings for God’s special man to come along before marriage. One of those habits she mentions, is this concept of journalling. For her, it is an act of obedience to process what God is talking to her about, and to process what is going on in her life at the time she puts pen to page.
Scripture does tell us to meditate on His Word daily. The Scriptural concept of meditation is not to clear one’s mind as in the case of Yoga or other eastern forms of meditation, but to fill one’s mind with thoughts about a given passage of Scripture, mulling it over, thinking about it from different angles, finding out how it applies to one’s life situation in some fashion and then seeking the Holy Spirit’s guidance in applying that Scripture to everyday living. In this manner, obeying God’s directive to meditate on His Word is accomplished by many in the form of journalling.
For myself, when journalling via Scriptural meditation, I have to have my electronic Bible open on my screen, because some thought will jump into my head related to the passage I am reading, and I have to jump right back into the Bible in order to look up what else God says on that thought, and typically end up quoting those verses in my writing for that moment.
Discovering what God says about a given passage via other passages of Scripture will do two things: A) It will allow you to view the thought in context of the rest of Scripture, and B) it will show you if that thought has been taken out of context, or if it genuinely is what you began thinking it was. Sometimes we get twisted ideas of what given passages mean, and we will even hear those twisted versions taught by big-name preachers and teachers. But when we ask for the Holy Spirit’s guidance in understanding God’s Word, we will be able to discern when we’ve mistaken a verse to mean one thing when in reality it means another. Remember that God’s Word is profitable for reproof, for correction, for encouragement, and for training in righteousness. Sometimes our preconcieved notion of a given passage needs to be challenged for us to get a better and deeper understanding.
Engaging in journalling of this nature can drastically lengthen one’s private time every day. For example, today’s thought began with reading today’s devotional pages almost half an hour ago, and here I am 26 minutes later, still typing!
I apologize to T.C. Spellen at not getting to her book, “The Waiting Room: A 31-day Daily Devotional for Single Women Waiting for the Right Husband” till now, but I am reading it now.
