Keeping a Journal

I wrote this to share during church a couple of Sundays ago when my brother-in-law was sharing about how spiritual disciplines put you in a position where it is likely to encounter God. One thing he was emphasizing was that a spiritual discipline is part of the journey, but it is also sometimes the destination.

I began to journal when I was in Jr. High, and have kept one pretty much continuously since then. My journal is one of the places where my relationship with God happens. It is a record, in the sense that I can go back and see how God has related with me in the past. But when I go to my journal it isn't to record things. It is to be in that relationship with God.

So, in that sense, it is both journey and destination.

A journal is a place of honesty. It is between me and God only, so I can and do write anything, because God already sees it. I come to my journal with my intense emotions, with my joys, with everything. That is where it is a journey. I come. I write. I hope that the writing will make sense of my life.

In my journey with God, both in my journal and otherwise, reaching a destination is up to God. My journal is one way I open myself to that happening.

The destinations of keeping a journal are varied. Sometimes as I write, truth becomes clear. Sometimes, even though I think I'm being honest with God, as I write, God will reveal ways I'm not being honest, even with myself. Although that can be a painful destination, it is a holy and necessary one if I want to grow in faith.

Other times, as I have my devotions, God will use the scriptures and the writings to shed clear light on specific situations I'm dealing with, and I have to write it down immediately so that I can understand it as fully as possible. My journals are full of passages from the Bible sand from devotional writers, followed by writing out what God was showing me from those particular words. They are full of destinations where God met me in my specific need.

There are other times, sometimes long periods of time, when God has seemed far away. During those times I've continued to write. Maybe I write even more during those times because my journal is part of my desire to meet with God. I write out my loneliness for God, my anger that God doesn't seem to be showing up, my struggle for a sense of God's presence, my demands that God answer my prayers. These are times of journey without an obvious destination.

I have a practice of reading through the last year's entries at around the time of my birthday each year. I've found that to be a faith-building exercise. Even those long periods of spiritual dryness end up being marked by something God was teaching me. Those lessons are no less important than the fun ones where God just shows up and overwhelms me with a sense of presence and love. In that yearly review I get another chance to see the journey as well as the destinations.

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