Spiritual Journaling can be particularly meaningful, and it can be very difficult. What kinds of things make journaling difficult? Worry that someone will read the journal? Feeling that it’s too painful to go over a conflict? Disliking to write things down? Feeling obligated to write in it every day? Thinking you need to have a special sort of book? Other? (Johnson, p. 40)
A journal (diary) is a book in which a Christian records the works and ways of God in their life. Other things in the journal include daily events, personal relationships, insights into Scripture, prayer requests. Quotations, interactions with readings, questions, poetry, memories – these are also acceptable journal subjects. Jim Martin says, “My journal is a place where I will often dump a lot of anxiety, anger, and frustration. It is a place where I talk about my temptations and sins.” There are some God-inspired journals in the Bible. Many psalms are records of David’s personal spiritual journey with the Lord. The journal of Jeremiah’s feelings about the fall of Jerusalem is the book of Lamentations.
Some Beginning Observations about Spiritual Journaling
Your journal is for you.
Your journal clarifies the reality of your life. Seeing things in print brings a different perspective. “Journaling is a way of paying attention to our lives…” (Calhoun, p. 57)
Your journal reminds you to live with authenticity and genuineness.
Your journal should be kept for future reference.
In her book Gift from the Sea, Anne Morrow Lindberg writes,
“I begin these pages for myself, in order to think out my own particular pattern of living, my individual balance of life, work, and human relationships. And since I think best with a pencil in my hand, I started to write…”
She describes the spiritual discipline of journaling. Many Christians have found journaling to be extremely important to spiritual growth and development. The practice has become one of the most significant disciplines in the ongoing spiritual development of many believers.
WHAT IS JOURNALING?
Journaling is not the mere recording of facts about the day’s events. It is more than keeping a log or diary.
Journaling involves reflection and contemplation. Journaling as a spiritual discipline involves the contemplation of life in light of the spiritual center. For Christians, that spiritual center is probably best expressed in that ancient and profound creedal statement, “Jesus is Lord.”
Journals record successes and failures, prayers, depression, and other events and emotions in the lives of human beings who are serious about living under the will of God.
HOW CAN JOURNALING HELP ME PRACTICALLY?
Journaling can enable one both to remember and to clarify thoughts, feelings and ideas. How many times have you had a keen insight or a significant thought and then it occurred to you, “I really need to write that down”? However, the idea, the feeling, the thought was never written and has since been long forgotten. Such ideas and impressions may forever be lost. “A journal is a place where we can give expression to the fountain of our heart, where we can unreservedly pour out our passion before the Lord. Since human thoughts and emotions range between extremes of exhilaration and despondency, we can expect to find both within the pages of our journal.” (Whitney, p. 209)
Journaling can help one become aware of patterns of behavior. Gordon MacDonald wrote concerning his practice of journaling: “At first it was difficult. I felt self-conscious. I was worried that I would lose the journal or that someone might peek inside to see what I’d said. But slowly the self-consciousness began to fade, and I found myself sharing in the journal more and more of the thoughts that flooded my inner spirit. Into the journal went words describing my feelings, my fear and sense of weakness, my hopes, and my discoveries about where Christ was leading me. When I felt empty or defeated, I talked about that too in the journal. Slowly I began to realize that the journal was helping me come to grips with an enormous part of my inner person that I had never been fully honest about. No longer could fears and struggles remain inside without definition. They were surfaced and confronted… (Gordon MacDonald, Ordering Your Private World, p. 131). Journaling helps us see patterns that may be present in our lives. Are there recurring themes of anger, rationalization, and negative, destructive thought patterns? The purpose of discovering such a pattern is not simply self-exploration but the intersection of our lives with God’s redemptive work in our world. Perhaps there are entries which reflect that you are offended and angry quite regularly. As you read through the entries, ask yourself how a total stranger might perceive you upon reading the same entries.
Journaling gives the opportunity to reflect upon the day and week in light of our faith. Unfortunately, too many days and weeks are lived without reflection and thought. Consequently, there may not be a real awareness of how faith is or is not being integrated into daily life. So often weeks and months pass and there is not serious contemplation as to where we are in our spiritual journey. Keeping a journal allows a built-in time to review and examine the days and weeks in light of one’s faith in Jesus. “…Meaningful meditation requires a concentration not often developed in our fast-paced, media-distracted society. … Sitting with pen and paper also heightens my expectation of hearing from God as I think on Him and His words in the passage before me.” (Whitney, p. 208, 209)
Journaling may give important insight about the state of one’s spiritual journey. Reading journal entries from several years back can give insight into the past, the present, and the future. “Over time repetitious themes, sins, compulsions, hopes, and concerns emerge. We begin to recognize our besetting sins, limitations and desires. During times of transition, travel, loss, joy, illness and decision making, journaling can provide a way of processing the hopes, fears, longings, angers and prayer sof our heart.” (Calhoun, p. 57)
Journaling helps maintain the other spiritual Disciplines.
HOW DOES A PERSON KEEP A JOURNAL?
Have a definite time each day for writing in the journal.
Select a journal that fits your preferences. Jim Martin writes, “At one time, I used college-ruled, spiral-bound notebooks. For several years I have been using bound notebooks (clothbound notebooks containing about seventy-five pages of blank, ruled paper). Most entries fill somewhere between one and three pages.”
Write on a variety of topics. The entries might be varied; after all, the journal is for the writer and not the writer for the journal. In other words, make the journal useful to you. You are not doing this for anyone else. What kinds of things make good journal entries? Reflection on the events of the day and their meaning in light of one’s faith commitment. Written prayers can help a person express to the Father some of the deepest longings of the heart. A written prayer list can bring to the awareness the situations and people who weigh heavily on the writer’s heart. Sins can be confessed and repentance offered before God.
Write freely, reflecting on the past and God’s intervention in life.
Quotes & Reflections. From books, the daily newspaper, and other periodicals certain poignant quotes may jump out at you. The quote can be copied as well as some reflection of how this quote interacts with your own thinking.
Absolute honesty is very important. We write to reveal ourselves to the Lord. Henri Nouwen kept a spiritual journal during his first year at L’Arche, a community in Toronto for adults who experience severe mental and even physical challenges. The journal reflects his move from serving as a professor at Harvard University to working with these adults in a very different environment. Nouwen displays his disarming honesty when he writes on Saturday, March 15:
I love Jesus but want to hold on to my own friends even when they do not lead me closer to Jesus. I love Jesus but want to hold on to my own independence even when that independence brings me no real freedom. I love Jesus but do not want to lose the respect of my professional colleagues, even though I know that their respect does not make me grow spiritually. I love Jesus but do not want to give up my writing plans, travel plans, even when these plans are more to my glory than to the glory of God. (Nouwen, The Road to Daybreak, pp. 147-148)
Seek self-knowledge in the context of our repentance and God’s redemption. This activity of God in our lives is the thread that binds the days and weeks of our journals and lives together. Romans 12:3 encourages us to have a balanced self-image. “A journal can be the means by which the Holy Spirit shows us areas of sin or weakness, the emptiness of a path we have chosen, insight into our motives, or other things that can transform the journal pate into an altar of seeking God.” (Whitney, p. 207)
Summarize. Every month summarize the month’s entries noting key events and themes.
Continue to journal during the dry times. “The novelty of journaling soon wears off. There will be days when you will have a spiritual version of ‘writer’s block’. At other times you just won’t have any insights from scriptures or your experience with God which seem noteworthy … plan for persistence.” (Whitney, p. 220)
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Many of these points were gleaned from four articles on Journaling found on Jim Martin’s blog. I encourage you to read these in their unedited and more personal form. The links are below.
Jim Martin Posts on Journaling
http://godhungry.org/?p=720
http://godhungry.org/?p=721
http://godhungry.org/?p=722
http://godhungry.org/?p=724
Other Resources:
Calhoun, Adele Ahlberg. Spiritual Disciplines Handbook.
Johnson, Jan. Reflection & Confession.
Whitney, Donald S. Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life.
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Homework Assignment
In your journal, write some reflections on the following questions.
* What are the distractions present in my life that keep me from a spiritual focus?
*What sin have I excused away in order not to deal with it seriously?
*What are some reasons that being a disciple of Jesus brings me great joy?
* What is my favorite Scripture? After reading that Scripture, list the three most powerful words in that passage – the words that if removed would ruin the passage. Re-write a portion of that passage in your own words.
*Spend 15 minutes reading Psalm 1. Read it slowly. Read it out loud. Read each verse a few times. In your imagination place yourself at a table with Jesus. Imagine that Jesus is saying this Psalm to you. Only after these exercises, write down four or five thoughts that come to mind about this Psalm.
Next Week’s Subject is: Meditation as a Spiritual Discipline.
Read the following quotes about meditation before coming to class next week. It comes from THIS BLOG. Meditation by W. David Phillips Here are a few quotes I wanted to pass on to you about meditation:
Meditation, according to Whitney involves, “filling your mind with God and truth. For some, meditation is an attempt to achieve complete mental passivity, but biblical mediation requires constructive mental activity.” 1 He goes on to define mediation as “deep thinking on the truths and spiritual realities revealed in Scripture for the purposes of understanding, application, and prayer. Meditation goes beyond hearing, reading, studying, and even memorizing as a means of taking in God’s word.”2 One of the images that may best describe meditation is the steeping of tea.
Eugene Peterson, in his book “Eat this Book” speaks of meditation as part of the act of reading scripture. He says that it is the “discipline we give to keeping the memory active in the act of reading. Meditation moves from looking at the words of the text to entering the world of the text. As we take this text into ourselves, we find that the text is taking us into itself…Meditation is the aspect of spiritual reading that trains us to read Scripture as a connected, coherent whole, not a collection of inspired bits and pieces…Mediation is the primary way in which we guard against the fragmentation of our Scripture reading into isolated oracles…Meditation is the prayerful employ of imagination in order to become friends with the text. It must not be confused with fancy or fantasy”.3
Peterson goes on to say that “meditation is not intrusion, it is rumination – letting the images and stories of the entire revelation penetrate our understanding. By meditation we make ourselves at home and conversant with everyone in the story, entering the place where Moses and Elijah and Jesus come together. Participation is necessary. Meditation is participation.”4
“No text can be understood out of its entire context. The most “entire” context is Jesus. Every biblical text must be read in the living presence of Jesus. Every word of the scriptural text is a window or door leading us out of the tarpaper shacks of self into this great outdoors of God’s revelation in sky and ocean, tree and flower, Isaiah and Mary, and, finally and completely, Jesus. Meditation discerns the connections and listens for the harmonies that come together in Jesus.” 5
1 Whitney, 43.
2 Ibid, 44.
3Eugene Peterson, Eat This Book, Eerdmans, 2007, pg 99-101.
4Ibid, 101-102.
5Ibid, 102.
