A Stack of Records

 

Oh, by the way . . . did I mention journaling?

In years gone by, we would call it keeping a diary. Now, we call it journaling. I don’t know why we call it journaling, but I like the expression.

I still remember the day I started journaling. We had just moved to our first house. I had two kids and one on the way. I was scared . . . scared whether I could make the house payments.

So I started journaling. I got myself a nice notebook, took my Bible and went to the donut shop (I liked donuts). So there I read my Bible, just sat and thought, and I began to write stuff down (I also ate doughnuts). Back then, it was a lot like it still is today in my personal journaling. I usually started writing something down that was really bothering me. I had a conversation with God. I’d tell Him what was really bothering me and He would answer.

It was just ten days or two weeks and I started to notice a pattern in my writings.

I discovered that God encouraged me a lot.

Isn’t that something? God encouraged me.

You see, we in our fallen nature, tend to beat ourselves up a lot. I was always dwelling on things I felt I hadn’t done well, or had failed in altogether.

Then I discovered God was always encouraging me. Why is that so strange? The truth of the matter is that God believes in us. He believes in His kids . . . and He encourages us, a lot. Further down the road, I realized that He enjoys our accomplishments. When we do something pretty good, accomplish something out of the ordinary, at least for us where we are at, He takes great pleasure in that, and He lets us know it.

Why wouldn’t He? I do that for my children; why wouldn’t the great heavenly Father do the same?

After some years of hearing His voice, I began to hear Him laugh sometimes. Yeah, He laughs at the dumb things I do. He gets a kick out of it. Sometimes, when I am stressing and biting my fingernails, He laughs at me. He laughs because He sees ahead and He knows my situation is going to turn out really good, even though I have myself all tied up in knots.

So what about journaling? How do you get started on that?

You just write down what you think God is telling you. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Sometimes you’ll get it wrong. Later on, you’ll realize that in a particular situation, you got it wrong. You didn’t really hear Him clearly.

Oh, horrors! You got it wrong. You didn’t really write down what He was saying!

So what? You are learning an exercise. Do you think you are going to get everything right when you are just starting out? When you learned to ride a bicycle, didn’t you wipe out sometimes? Sure you did! And you skinned your knees and your knuckles, and sometimes it hurt a lot.

So what if you don’t get all of your journalling right at first. You are going to make some mistakes. God knows that. It doesn’t mean you don’t attempt it, because you are afraid you’ll get some things wrong. It’s a process. You learn as you go.

Well, journaling is an amazingly valuable and fulfilling exercise. I have big stacks of journals from years of journaling. Sometimes I go back a ways and read. I am amazed at how God was preparing me for what was ahead in what He was saying to me.

When I began to write books, the journals proved to be invaluable. I was able to go back and see what happened on what dates, sometimes in great detail, depending on how detailed I was in my journaling.

The bottom line in journaling, is that you have a conversation with God . . . and you write it down. Sometimes I write just a paragraph or a half page on a given day, and sometimes I write six pages. There are days when I don’t write anything at all. Don’t get in bondage to your journal. Be free flowing and natural about it. Don’t get yourself all tied up in knots over the practice. Journaling is a great privilege, so don’t let it get to be an obligation or a chore.

What kind of notebook should you use for journaling? Well, if you can afford it, get something really nice. Pay eight or ten dollars, if you can. Barnes and Nobel has some really nice journals.

The nicer the journal, the more respect you will have for it.

Think about it. God is speaking to you.

Isn’t that just about the most valuable thing you can think of?

Treat it accordingly.

The nicer the notebook you buy, the more respect you will have for the exercise.

I have been journaling for over thirty years and I never tire of it. I look forward to it. The first thing I do when I wake up is to go to the kitchen to brew my favorite cup of coffee from my Keurig machine. The second thing I do is to go back down the hall to my office. There I shut the door, open my Bible and read a bit. Then, it’s journal time . . . my time to have a conversation with God. It’s a great way to start the day!

Check in next week for the next installment of Learning to Hear the Voice of God . . . posted right here!

 

Lorraine took the photo for this article.