This is The Way – Devo Day 35

The Discipline of Journaling

Many have found that keeping a journal helps them better understand their process of spiritual formation superintended by the Holy Spirit. By recording your interactions with the Word of God, your feelings and insights from the stream of your life, and your God sightings (in nature, in people, in circumstances) you’ll have a chronicling of your spiritual development.

Journaling is not just an introspective exercise, it is also a method of keeping track of what the Holy Spirit is up to and what you’ve been working on to support that effort. There’s nothing like seeing growth and progress to encourage you to continue the life-long process.

The This is The Way Daily Devotional that we are doing together is a form of journaling for me and loosely follows a structure that I have found useful in past efforts of journaling. I’ll share at the end but I also want to give you some tips that will help you get started and be successful with journaling.

1. Make It Yours, Make It You

If you’ve never done it and it looks too much like the assignments you hated in school, I would like to offer a little reframing that may change the way you feel about journaling and even how you do it:

• There’s really no wrong way to do it. There are no rules and you can just make it you and even change it up as you go. Nobody is going to correct it so you don’t have to stress over spelling, grammar, or punctuation.
• Write it to yourself. THIS IS A GAME CHANGER. You are the author and the audience. No one need ever read it. It’s for you to see God at work in you.

2. Keep It Simple

The ROI (return on investment) for journaling is long-term. Don’t overthink it. Don’t make grandiose plans to have them published in a book. Keep it simple so you’ll keep doing it. And be realistic with your plans for entry length and frequency. There is a point where more is counterproductive because you won’t keep doing it. Be realistic with your time commitments because writing your thoughts down takes time and if you haven’t done it before you might be surprised how hard it can be to get it out of your head and heart onto a piece of paper. You also don’t have to write down everything that happened to you and every thought that ran through your head. A sentence describing something significant or a “light-blub” moment that brought clarity is enough. It doesn’t even have to be complete sentences reflecting a thought, image, or idea. What’s important is to record it, regularly.

3. When You Mess Up Don’t Give Up

Once you decide and start journaling you will have times when you can’t get it done. Notice I said you will mess up your schedule and that’s a real problem for those of us who are OCD or perfectionists. The best of life-long journals are incomplete and if you think yours will be different, the first time you mess up you’ll give up. And when you skip a day, don’t make your entry an excuse. I can guarantee you, you will not enjoy reading those entries and you have no one to impress (least of all God). And forget about making them up. Just start again.

4. Take The Work of The Holy Spirit Seriously

Your journal is not a diary. It can contain significant things, funny things, relational things but the primary thing we want to capture are snapshots of our spiritual development. The longer you journal you will find your entries filled with Scripture and portions of your prayers. Journaling is like taking our spiritual temperature or recording the depth of our relationship with Christ.

We must never lose sight of the fact that the most we ever do in our spiritual formation is to simply cooperate with what the Holy Spirit is doing. His work is to reshape our character, our heart, our mind, our passions, and our mission into the image of Christ. Journaling is the rearview mirror allowing us to see His work in us over time.

S.O.A.P. Devotional Bible Study Method

I know I said there are no rules but this is a method that my wife and I have successfully used over the years. This is not the only way and I would not say it is the best way but it is a simple way that is sustainable and fruitful.

1. Pray and ask God to guide your thoughts and open up His Word.
2. Read your Bible (have a devotional reading plan)
3. Journal using the S.O.A.P. method
   • S – Scripture: Write down the Bible passage you are studying. This can be one verse or several verses. Taking the time to write out each word helps you to slow down and really focus on each word individually.
   • O – Observation: Write down what you noticed when writing out the Scripture. Then write down anything else that jumps out at you. Then examine the Scripture more closely and look for answers to these questions like; Who is it written by? Who is it written to? What is the context of this passage? What is the main message of the passage? Does this passage remind you of other Bible verses? Is there repetition, comparison or contrast? What seems interesting or unusual?
   • A – Application: How can you apply this Scripture to YOUR life? I also like to personalize the Scripture by putting my name into it. The “A” can also stand for Ask or Action. If you have questions or something you don’t understand about this passage, record those here. Furthermore, if applying this Scripture to your life means taking some kind of action, write that down also.
   • P – Prayer: Pray back the Scripture and your thoughts. Write out your response to the Scriptures. If you are not used to writing down your prayers, this may feel a bit weird to you, but it can really be life-changing. Start out by responding to what God is saying to you in the Bible verses you just studied, in your own words. Just like you would if you were talking to him over coffee. How has it impacted you and what are you going to do about it?

But when the Friend comes, the Spirit of the Truth, he will take you by the hand and guide you into all the truth there is. He won’t draw attention to himself, but will make sense out of what is about to happen and, indeed, out of all that I have done and said. – This is The Way

John 16:13 (The Message)

QUESTIONS TO PONDER

1. If you already journal, what is it that you enjoy about the process? What have you learned about yourself? About God? Could you share some of your insights and results of journaling with someone else without showing them all the detail?
2. Do you feel that this spiritual discipline would help you at this time in your spiritual formation? When will you start?
3. Why not try using the S.O.A.P. outline for your devotional for a week or two?

IF YOU ARE JUST STARTING AND WANT TO GO BACK AND READ THE PREVIOUS POSTS IN THIS SERIES