What a chapter! I hope you all have read it--I read it a few times just to let it sink in. For those of you who haven't read it yet, or don't have a book, let me take you through the highlights.
"When life makes sense, it becomes a journey, a spiritual adventure. Writing down the adventure as it happens gives us a feel for our place in the story God is weaving in our lives. Journaling helps us to become aware of the journey." p. 250
"Many of us rush around without much conscious knowledge of the pilgrimage God is carving out for us. When tragedy strikes, we've not learned the ways of God, so we have no frame of reference from which to respond. So, we slog through life, missing the divine touches.
Writing in a prayer journal helps us take stock of our location of the journey. We can become poets, artists with our souls. When we keep a prayer journal, we can reflect on what God is doing, on the patterns of our Father's care instead of reacting to life. If we see our lives as a pilgrimage, then it becomes an integrated whole. It makes sense. When we understand the story, it quiets our souls. It's okay to have a busy life. It's crazy to have a busy soul." p. 251
"The modern quest for self-fulfillment is a secularized version of Christianity's discovery of the self. Without the Shepherd guiding us to see our true selves in relationship to him, we can lose our way and become obsessed with self. Instead of seeing our bent toward evil, we can become increasingly touchy, supersensitive to self but insensitive to others. We no longer see ourselves clearly.
The spiritual pilgrimage is the opposite. The discovery of self in relationship to God leads to a lifestyle of repentance. For example, we are seldom aware of our impatience. What we feel is everyone else's slowness. Because we are naturally the center of our own universes, we don't feel irritable. We just notice everyone getting in our way. Here's where a prayer journal can help." p. 252
Then the author describes using a journal over the course of a year and using a journal during a morning prayer time.
"The key was being honest about what I was feeling and then letting Scripture speak to my heart. By being honest, the real me was talking. I wasn't trying to be good. When we look at our life through the lens of Scripture, we seldom lose our way. We can be real, but we don't get lost in our feelings.
If I hadn't written down my reflections, I wouldn't have known what God was teaching me. By the time I was finished, I knew my part in God's play. It was offstage in a corner, waiting. Not particularly glamorous but crystal clear. Opening my heart up for God to speak to me through his Word opened the door to repentance. My prayer time itself was a journey, a mininovel.
You don't have to write well to keep a prayer journal, nor do you have to be consistent. It is just a written version of childlike praying, except more organized. Begin with what's on your heart, what's bugging you, what you are thankful for. If you are real before God, then everything else flows.
The act of writing out your worries, joys and prayers helps you focus and keeps your mind from wandering. But the best part is that over time you will begin to see patterns of what God is doing, to pick up the threads of a story." p. 256
From time to time in my life I have journaled. From the "little girl diaries" with locks to keep snooping brothers out, to required journal writing in school, to periodic/episodic writing in college and beyond--I have tried it. I like how the author gives permission for it to be childlike, inconsistent, a record of what is on our heart (including what is bugging you!!), etc. This is a very real, transparent accounting of our days and our hearts. Sometimes I go back and read some of my old journals. I can remember being in those places that I wrote about. I feel again the feelings I had then. I can also see how much He has taught me since then and I know He continues with me now.
What did this chapter say to you?
1 comment:
I made numerous notes on this chapter as well. Journalling piece by piece, day by day, does help me to see the integrated whole. I know that only He knows my heart and that He will reveal Himself, my sin, and His remedy, through His Word and Holy Spirit. Confession, meditation and application are part of the "purifying of our souls in obeying The Truth"...described in I Peter 1:22-23. Obedience is not only better than sacrifice, it is better than self-improvement.
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