So several months ago I wrote a post title "Journaling" . It has, as of late, been on my heart to return to this topic as I'm convinced now more than ever that it holds great potential for spiritual growth.
Life over the past
few months has been a blur. Our fall ministry semester is up and running, Abbie is cutting two new teeth, and God continues to show me new things about my beautiful wife. Lots of things demand my time and it's increasingly easy to give into the tyranny of the urgent. To pause and record my thoughts forces me to slow down. It forces me to listen to my self and hopefully my creator. Unlike blogging my journal is intensely personal. Most dear to me is the fact that it provides a clear window into what God has done in my past. I'm on my 6th volume in my journal each one roughly represents a year of my life. The ink on the pages allows me to see where God has moved how he as worked through even the hardest of situations and has proven himself to be ever faithful even when I was faithless.
Journaling grounds me when life seems crazy. This is an excerpt from the secular website The Art of Manliness...
"As each year passes, the pixels of our memories burn out and the haze sets in. By age 80, you’ll only remember the faintest outlines of the big things that happened to you. But the stuff that’s really interesting is often the little, seemingly mundane details of life. What was a man’s daily routine like in 2009? Of course, the whipper snappers will ask you about the big stuff too: “Where were you when you found out about the attacks on the World Trade Center?” and “What did you think about the election of Barack Obama?” Your journals will give them the answers they’ll be looking for and will bring you closer....It can bring you to your senses. Have you ever struggled with a choice, thought about it long and hard, made a decision, but then some time later started to regret it? Have you ever gotten into a rut from which you can’t seem to find a way out? A journal can aid you in these dilemmas. When you make a decision, you can write down all the reasons you have for coming to that conclusion. Then, after times passes, and you start doubting that choice, you can look back, remind yourself of why you made that decision in the first place, and feel reassured in pressing on. Or, it you’re in a depressed funk and don’t know how to extract yourself from it, you can look back through your journal to find the times when you were happiest. Old journal entries can help you rediscover the kind of changes you need to make to get your life back on track. Or you can look back at your journal and how you used to operate 5 years ago and think, “Damn! I never want to be that man again! What was I thinking?” A journal is basically a chance for your past self to lend counsel to your present self..."
Over all i'm thankful for this discipline it continues to point me back to Jesus as all good disciplines should. Yet the easy road is to ignore it and let this practice laps. Time and time again i find myself having to recommit to the practice. To pause and write down scripture that speaks to me, burning questions I have, or times when I know i'll need to revisit goals and promises. This blog post is a way that I'm actually reinforcing in myself the need to routinely examine my life and goals. So here's to another season of listening, pausing, and recording. I think i'll kick it off with a simple commitment to journal once a day for the next seven days. That might mean the blog is quiet. Fear not my heart will be busy writing.
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